


Kurtbastian One-Shots from Tumblr

by Lady Divine (fhartz91)



Category: Glee
Genre: Adopted Children, Adoption, Aftercare, Aftermath of Violence, Age Difference, Alcohol, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - BDSM, Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Dalton Academy, Alternate Universe - Domestic, Alternate Universe - Escorts, Alternate Universe - Future, Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Religious, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Alternate Universe - Shapeshifters, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Amnesia, Anal Play, Anal Plug, Anal Sex, Angst, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, BDSM, Blind Date, Blood Drinking, Bodyswap, Bondage, Cannibalism, Cat/Human Hybrids, Character Turned Into Vampire, Character Turned Into a Ghost, Child Loss, Consensual Infidelity, Daddy Kurt, Daddy Kurtbastian, Daddy Sebastian, Dalton Academy, Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Drabble, Drabble Collection, Drinking, Drunk!Kurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fictional Religion & Theology, First Kiss, First Time, First Time Bottoming, First Time Topping, Fluff and Angst, Forced Orgasm, Future Fic, Ghosts, Hand Jobs, Heat play, Hospitalization, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Hybrids, Ice Play, Illnesses, Infidelity, Kissing, Lapdance, M/M, Masturbation, Mpreg, Oral Sex, Panic Attacks, Past!Klaine, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prostitution, Psychic Abilities, Religious Conflict, Religious Content, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Science, Science Fiction, Sleep Sex, Sleepwalking, Somnophilia, Supernatural Elements, Teacher-Student Relationship, Vampire Turning, Vampires, Vibrators, Visual Agnosia, Voyeurism, Werewolves, Whipping, anamagus, night club
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-07
Updated: 2014-09-26
Packaged: 2018-01-11 13:08:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 174
Words: 401,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1173439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fhartz91/pseuds/Lady%20Divine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>These one-shots represent my attempt to spread the Kurtbastian love one misguided story at a time. Each individual story will have its own rating and warnings. They are mostly based off of anon prompts I received. Some are sweet and family oriented, some are smut, some are supernatural. Take a peek and give it a shot :) I am also taking prompts all the time so if you have one, hit me up!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. It's Not Right but It's Okay

**Author's Note:**

> Anon prompt ‘Kurt and Sebastian break an important piece of furniture while having sex’. 1,084 words. Warning for mentions of oral sex.

“Fuck, Sebastian!” Kurt screamed, tossing throw pillows and blankets aside. He stomped around the sofa, surveying the damage. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

“If I recall, that’s what got us into this mess to begin with,” Sebastian teased, watching as Kurt’s fit spiraled into a full-blown episode.

“Fuck you, Sebastian!” Kurt barked. “I’m serious! My dad’s going to be here any minute! What are we going to do?”

“We’ll just hide it, like we did last time,” Sebastian suggested.

Kurt huffed and rolled his eyes.

“Last time it was the bed,” Kurt argued. “My dad didn’t see the bed. This is the fucking couch!”

“Well, don’t get upset at me,” Sebastian said, putting up his hands in defense. “You were the one with the bright idea to fuck my face an hour before your dad was going to get here.”

Kurt turned steely eyes on his boyfriend, glaring daggers in his direction.

“Not…that I’m complaining, of course,” Sebastian added.

“Yeah, well, you’re the one who insisted on the couch instead of the bed,” Kurt retorted. “It’s a futon, for fuck’s sake! It’s not to meant to take that kind of stress!”

“Neither are you, apparently, and by the way…” Sebastian grabbed Kurt by the hips and pulled him towards him, rutting against him, “…you’re going to need to tone down the cursing if you don’t want us breaking another piece of furniture before he gets here.”

“Turn it off, Smythe,” Kurt said, smirking as Sebastian pressed his erection against Kurt’s hip. “We have to save this futon.”

“Ugh! Can’t we just toss it?” Sebastian groaned.

“We can’t! He bought it for us. He’ll notice if it’s gone.”

Sebastian sighed, taking a moment to consider the forgone futon.

“Well, if the leg had broken off, we could just cut the other ones to make it level,” Sebastian contemplated.

“Thank you for telling me what we can’t do, genius,” Kurt snapped. “But it’s cracked down the middle.”

“Kurt! We can’t fix this. Just tell him the truth.”

“And what truth is that, Sebastian? That it broke because I was bouncing on your face with my dick in your mouth?”

“See,” Sebastian said, wrapping his arms around Kurt’s waist, “when you put it like that, it doesn’t sound so bad.”

Sebastian wanted to laugh, but Kurt was beside himself trying to come up with a solution. He got down on his hands and knees, grimacing when the knees of his Louis Vuitton jeans touched the dusty wood floor.

“I don’t need my father knowing I have sex,” Kurt muttered, examining the damage to the underside of the futon frame.

“I’m more than 50% sure your dad already knows.” Sebastian took a moment to enjoy the view of Kurt’s pert, tight ass wiggling as he crawled across the floor.

“If we get a bunch of books and stuff and lodge them under the frame, maybe it will hold till he leaves,” Kurt rattled off, focusing on the task at hand instead of Sebastian’s witty comments.

Sebastian could have helped, but he opted instead to watch Kurt struggle to put his plan into action. The first few items Kurt chose for his job were logical – a few spare cinder blocks from those few weeks they spent living with a broken bed, and some long boards left over from Kurt’s DIY reclaimed wood table project. In the end, he went to Pottery Barn and bought a brand new vintage-looking table. After he constructed a ramshackle saw horse, Kurt realized his tiny structure didn’t quite reach the underside of the frame, and he panicked. He collected up every large book he could find to wedge underneath. With the help of a few oversized blankets, the futon looked passable…as long as no one tried to sit on it.

Kurt looked at his handiwork and felt sick to his stomach.

“He’s going to know,” Kurt rambled. “He’s going to see it, and he’s going to know I broke it. He’s going to know I was having sex of his couch and broke it.”

Sebastian shook his head, taking Kurt in his arms. He rubbed soothing circles into Kurt’s back, trying hard to calm his anxious boyfriend.

“Look,” he said, sounding calm and reassuring, “we’re all adults here. If he notices the couch, we’ll just tell him that we broke it…the two of us. We don’t have to go into how, we’ll just be straight with him. Alright?”

Kurt nodded, taking a deep, cleansing breath.

“Alright,” he repeated. He leaned up and kissed Sebastian on the cheek. “Thank you.”

“Hey,” Sebastian said with a sly crooked grin on his lips, “that’s what I’m here for.”

A few loud raps on the door interrupted their moment of calm, but Kurt was ready to face his dad, knowing that Sebastian was by his side. Kurt slid the loft door open.

“Hey, buddy!”

Burt wrapped his arms around his son, squeezing him tight.

“Dad!” Kurt exclaimed, happy to see his father now that the anxiety of the broken couch was behind him. “I missed you!”

“Well, you know, maybe you could get on a plane and come see your old man every once in a while.”

Burt looked past Kurt’s shoulder and saw Sebastian standing awkwardly behind them. Burt walked past Kurt and took Sebastian in his arms, patting him on the back roughly.

“Hey, kiddo!” he said, greeting the young man he knew would someday be his son-in-law.

“Hey, Burt.” Sebastian hugged Burt, genuinely happy to see him. Sebastian in particular had been looking forward to Burt’s visit. He had a lot to discuss with Burt on this trip. “How was your flight?”

“Eh, you know. Long, boring, cramped. I’m beat, I’ll tell you what.” Burt picked up his duffel and tossed it on the futon. The couch immediately slid to one side, complaining loudly, then broke in two. Sebastian looked at Burt. Burt looked at Kurt. Kurt looked at Sebastian with pleading eyes. Here was Sebastian’s chance to make good on his promise.

Sebastian took a deep breath and cleared his throat, taking in Burt’s stunned expression. Sebastian could tell by the unamused look in his eyes that Burt had a pretty accurate suspicion as to how the couch broke. Those blue eyes, so much like Kurt’s, stared at Sebastian, demanding an explanation.

“He did it,” Sebastian said quickly, pointing at his boyfriend. Kurt’s jaw dropped to his knees as he watched Sebastian grab the duffel and hurry off to their bedroom, closing the door behind him.


	2. As Long as We're Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here’s a one-shot for the anon prompt ‘water’. Kurt and Sebastian meet during summer vacation on the beach as children, and start a relationship. Eventually, they fall in love. But are they too different to be together? It’s a little different, but I hope you like what I did with it. Romance, fluff, with one NC17 moment. 2,506 words.

“So, what’s your favorite color?” Sebastian asked, jabbing the hard-packed sand with the edge of his shovel.

Kurt bit his lip, looking up and down the beach.

“Okay,” he said, pointing out to where the ocean stretched into the horizon. “Do you see that shade of blue out there? It’s not exactly the water, and it’s not exactly the sky?”

Sebastian scooched closed to Kurt to try and see what he saw.

“Do you mean, that blue that shimmers with just a little bit of silver?”

“Yup.” Kurt confirmed with a nod of his head. "It’s the color that’s made when the sky touches the water."

Sebastian giggled, looking back down at his shovel as he continued to dig into the sand, hiding the flush that rose to his cheeks.

“It’s the same color as your eyes,” Sebastian said quietly, careful not to look back at his new friend.

Kurt turned his head in surprise.

“Really?” Kurt said. He smiled a little bashfully. “I didn’t know that.”

Sebastian nodded, trying to look disinterested.

“Can you guess my favorite color?” Sebastian asked, looking up at Kurt through the sandy bangs that fell in his face. Kurt examined the boy from head to toe. He wore red boat shoes. His socks were white with red stripes. His red denim shorts matched his red windbreaker perfectly. He fidgeted, shoveling wet sand with his red shovel into his red bucket.

“Uh…red?” Kurt ventured.

“Yeah,” Sebastian said, his jaw dropping a bit in awe. “How’d you guess?”

Kurt shrugged.

“Sebastian!” A woman walked onto the beach, scanning the shoreline with her hand shielding her eyes. Kurt fled behind the safety of some large, black rocks jutting up from the sand. When she turned, she caught sight of her son building sand castles just out of reach of the waves. “Sebastian! It’s time to go!”

“Come on, Kurt!” Sebastian said, beckoning with a wave of his hand. “Come meet my mom.”

“I…I can’t.” Kurt stayed close to the rocks, trying to make himself smaller and unnoticeable. “My dad…he wouldn’t like it.”

“Oh.” Sebastian’s face fell, his bright smile slipping. “Well, when will I see you again? We’re leaving the beach house tonight.”

Kurt’s own face fell.

“Well, I live not far from here,” Kurt said. “I guess…will I see you next summer?”

“Yeah.” Sebastian nodded glumly. “That’s an awfully long time.”

Kurt didn’t want to cry, but he had never had a real friend, and he felt like he was losing the only one he would ever have.

“You won’t forget me?” Kurt asked.

Sebastian held up his pinkie and tried to smile.

“Pinkie promise I won’t…if you don’t forget me.”

Kurt linked pinkies with the boy and offered a sad smile back.

“I won’t forget you, Sebastian. I promise.”

***

“So, there I was, running down the field, my ankle screaming in agony when I saw my chance…” Sebastian bounced on the balls of his feet, recreating the epic, game winning goal while Kurt sat in the sand, fascinated by Sebastian’s story. “That fool of a goalie thought I was going to shoot to the left, but then I faked him out and shot to the right and…”

“Score!” Kurt cheered, laughing, with his hands thrown triumphantly in the air. “Wow! I wish I had been there to see it!”

“Yeah,” Sebastian agreed, plopping down beside his friend. Sebastian picked up a handful of stones and started throwing them absentmindedly into the ocean. “After, there was this big party, with music, and dancing…and girls…”

“Girls?” Kurt’s eyes opened wide. In the last six summers, Kurt had never heard Sebastian mention girls. Kurt had quietly hoped that Sebastian wasn’t interested in girls, but he knew that the chances of a handsome boy like Sebastian, with his piercing green eyes, his increasingly muscular build, and his devil-may-care attitude, being interested in someone like him was unrealistic.

“Yeah.” Sebastian didn’t look at Kurt while he spoke, just followed the trail of the stones as they skipped across the water.

“Well…uh…was there anyone…you know…in particular…you liked?” Kurt asked, trying to sound unconcerned as he picked up his own handful of stones and started tossing them in the water.

“There was this one girl,” Sebastian started. Kurt noticed the next stone that left Sebastian’s hands didn’t skip. Instead, it landed in the water with a plop and sank straight to the bottom. “She’s pretty…blonde…all the boys like her. She developed _really_ early…”

Kurt nodded while he listened, gripping on to one of the stones in his hand until he thought his skin would bleed.

“She wanted to kiss me.” Sebastian turned to look at Kurt, taking in his profile in the light of the setting sun. Sebastian swallowed hard, a little confused by how he felt for his beautiful, elegant friend, who looked like he would be just as much at home in Sebastian’s rich, gated neighborhood, in some of the finest houses in Ohio, as he did sitting on this quiet beach.

“Did you kiss her?” Kurt finally turned to look at Sebastian, sighing in despair at the thought of Sebastian’s plump, rosy lips kissing some over-developed preteen tart.

“No,” Sebastian admitted.

Kurt’s heart leapt in his chest, but he fought the urge to cheer, to laugh, to let Sebastian know how he felt.

“Why not?” he said instead.

“Because…because I didn’t want to.” Sebastian’s answer was so simple, but Kurt could tell there was so much more behind it…so much he was leaving unsaid.

“Oh.” Kurt’s answer felt the same.

Sebastian moved closer to Kurt, looking out at the darkening water before he spoke again.

“Would it be weird,” Sebastian said, his voice quivering slightly, “if I wanted to kiss you instead?”

Kurt took a sharp intake of breath and held it, barely believing that this moment was real.

Sebastian turned to face Kurt when Kurt took too long to answer.

“No,” Kurt said quietly, but shaking his head for emphasis. “No…I don’t think it’s weird.”

Sebastian and Kurt didn’t move for a long time, staring deeply into each others’ eyes, almost daring the other to lean in first. But a moment came when kissing each other simply seemed the only option, and both boys moved together slowly. Sebastian tilted his head to the right, keeping his eyes locked on his friend, wondering if he would balk, and turn away. Kurt was filled with so much joy that he knew that the moment Sebastian’s lips touched his, his head would simply explode. The sun barely glowed over the calm horizon when Sebastian’s lips finally met Kurt’s. Sebastian’s lips slid slowly against Kurt’s, just barely separating to accommodate Kurt’s mouth. Kurt felt his cheeks glow red and wondered if Sebastian had thought about this moment as much as he had.

Kurt didn’t want Sebastian to pull away. He didn’t want the beautiful moment to end, just like their summer together was quickly ending. But all moments pass away, good and bad. Sebastian looked into Kurt’s face, his smile warm, his eyes shining in what was left of the sunlight reflecting off the water.

“That was…nice…” he said, straightening up and returning back to his spot.

 Kurt sighed. “It was.”

Sebastian turned his face to the water and watched the light creep away.

Kurt couldn’t turn away.

“Sebastian?”

“Yeah, Kurt?”

“I’m going to miss you.”

Sebastian reached an arm around Kurt’s shoulder and pulled him close, shifting to let Kurt rest his head on his shoulder.

“I’m going to miss you, too.”

***

“Sebastian!” Kurt moaned when eager lips latched onto his neck and sucked mercilessly. “Sebastian! We can’t do this.”

Sebastian ran his hands down Kurt’s sides, traveling lower, barely asking for permission to be bold. Kurt grabbed Sebastian’s hands quickly before he went too far.

“Don’t worry,” Sebastian whispered against Kurt’s heated flesh. “No one’s going to see.”

“No, Sebastian,” Kurt whined, trying to squirm away. “I mean, we can’t do this.”

“Come on, Kurt,” Sebastian pleaded, getting his hands free just to have them blocked again. “I’ve been a good boy. I’m seventeen. I graduate high school next year. I don’t want to go to college a virgin.”

Kurt gasped, shoving at Sebastian hard, pushing him on his back in the sand.

“So that’s what this is about?” Kurt said, folding his arms over his chest. He held himself tight, shivering with anger and humiliation. “Not because I’m special? Just so you can get this out of the way?”

“You _are_ special,” Sebastian sighed in frustration, trying to ignore his throbbing erection long enough to placate his friend. “I waited for you. All year I waited for you!”

Kurt frowned in confusion.

“What do you mean you waited?” Kurt asked, hoping for an answer more romantic than what he had heard so far.

“Don’t you think I had offers?” Sebastian argued. “Guys in my school – gay, straight – were lining up to try and get with me, but I waited. I waited for you.” He put his hands on his hips and shook his head with a condescending laugh. “I was such an idiot to come here this summer.”

Kurt’s eyes went wide, his face paler than Sebastian had ever seen. He felt repulsive.

“What do you mean?” Kurt whispered, not sure he wanted to hear the answer.

“My parents wanted to take me to Paris this summer, Kurt,” Sebastian said. “But I said no. I said I wanted to come here, and they went without me. Now here I am, trapped here for the summer, when I could have been in Paris.”

“Well, you’ve only been here a few hours. Maybe you can call them back. Tell them you changed your mind. I’m sure they’ll have no problem getting you a ticket,” Kurt spat out sarcastically. Kurt didn’t care that tears had started to run down his cheeks. He had only cried in front of Sebastian once – when his father had died. Kurt remembered it as the worst summer of his life. Sebastian had sat on the beach with Kurt every night, watching the sun set, their arms wrapped around each other, while Kurt cried until there were no tears left. He swore he would never cry in front of Sebastian again.

Kurt _wanted_ to cry. He wanted the tears to fall and never stop. He wanted to make Sebastian uncomfortable. Let Sebastian see them. Let Sebastian know he caused them.

Sebastian barely looked repentant. They had fought before, but this was different. Kurt had never seen Sebastian’s eyes look so cold and cruel. Sebastian came up close to Kurt, a calculating smirk on his usually gorgeous face.

“You know,” he whispered into Kurt’s ear. “That sounds like an excellent idea.”

Sebastian left Kurt on the beach. He walked away from where Kurt sat within reach of the water, looking out at the ocean, his shoulders trembling with sobs. Sebastian turned back to look at his friend, his stomach twisting with revulsion, furious with himself for how he acted but too far gone to apologize. He started up the beach, but something tugged at him; a feeling that one of the few good things in his life was ending.

It felt too much like good-bye.

Sebastian turned back around, hoping he could figure out something to say that would make everything all right again.

But Kurt was gone.

***

“Sebastian! No! I…I can’t. This will never work. You know it won’t.”

Kurt buried his head in his hands so he wouldn’t have to see the beautiful ring Sebastian held beneath his nose, or the look of love and hope glowing in his green eyes.

Sebastian heard Kurt’s words, but he refused to accept no for an answer. He took Kurt’s hand and pried it from his face, trying to catch a glimpse of those silver-blue eyes that had captured his imagination so long ago, when Sebastian was seven and Kurt was six, and everything seemed simple – life, friendship, happiness, and love. It was out there for them; Sebastian knew it. Even if it didn’t exist anywhere else in the world, it was there for them on that beach. It had blossomed every summer, even after that one horrible moment when Sebastian left and didn’t come back…not for six long years.

“Tell me you don’t love me,” Sebastian said, holding Kurt’s hand over his heart. “Tell me you haven’t thought about me every day that we’ve been apart. Tell me you didn’t come up to this beach every summer, hoping I’d be here, and I’ll leave now. I’ll leave and never come back.”

Kurt’s eyes tried to focus past Sebastian, but when they did they fell back on the platinum ring, three perfect diamonds winking at Kurt in the setting sun. Kurt sighed.

“But we’re so different,” Kurt said with regret. “So much more now than we used to be.”

“I don’t think so,” Sebastian countered. “I don’t believe that at all.”

“But, you have dreams,” Kurt argued. “Big dreams. Dreams you deserve. Dreams I can’t be a part of.”

Sebastian rolled his eyes, kissing Kurt gently on the lips before he had a chance to turn away.

“The biggest dream I have, Kurt, has you in it.”

Kurt dropped his hand from his face, looking at Sebastian with the full force of both prismatic eyes, needing to find some way to object, to push Sebastian away. But the more Sebastian pressed his lips to Kurt’s, the more he ran his fingertips lightly over Kurt’s shoulders and up the nape of his neck, the more he whispered, “Kurt, I love you. Marry me”, the more Kurt’s resolve started to slip. Suddenly, Kurt could see what Sebastian dreamed possible – a life for the two of them, and whatever the future held. Nothing else mattered. As long as they loved each other, the rest was just details.

Sebastian raised a questioning eyebrow and Kurt nodded, this time letting Sebastian slip the extravagant ring onto his finger.

Kurt gazed at the metal band.

Sebastian wrapped his arms around his fiancé and held him tight, lacing their fingers together.

“Do you think this will really work?” Kurt asked, deciding to be doubtful for just a little while longer.

“Kurt,” Sebastian said, “I finally have my trust fund. We’ll want for nothing. There are millions of places in the world where we can go, and no one will ever have to see us. Or we can just stay here, on this beach. Whatever you want. As long as we’re together, fuck everything else.”

Kurt laughed, loving it just a little when Sebastian cursed.

Their eyes met again.

“As long as we’re together,” Sebastian repeated.

Kurt finally knew for sure. He tucked his tail beneath him, shimmering blue scales catching the last of the late afternoon sun. The rising tide surrounded them, offering his smooth skin relief from the grit of the sand. The wide ocean sang to him, but he wouldn’t be returning home tonight.

“As long as we’re together.” Kurt sighed. “As long as we’re together.”


	3. Someone to Carry Me Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I got numerous requests for the prompt drunk!Kurt. Kurt gets drunk after a surprise visit from his friends that include an unexpected guest. He sneaks away and gets drunk and calls Sebastian to help him home. Warnings for alcohol use and mentions of past!Klaine.

Kurt took a sloppy misstep forward and stumbled, almost falling into the street in the path of a preoccupied taxi cab driver. Sebastian reacted quickly, wrapping his arms tighter around Kurt’s waist and pulling him backward, nearly lifting him completely into the air to yank him out of harm’s way.

“Thank you,” Kurt hicupped, struggling to maintain his balance before continuing on across the street. Sebastian shook his head as he kept his grip on Kurt, one arm around his waist, the other holding Kurt’s arm propped over his shoulder.

“So let me get this straight,” Sebastian said, repositioning Kurt’s body when he felt him slip again, “the whole Scooby crew is out here to visit you for your birthday, but instead you snuck out alone, got drunk off your ass, and then called _me_ to pick you up.”

“Well,” Kurt said, swaying unsteadily on his feet, “I didn’t want anyone I _like_ to see me like this.”

“Uh-huh,” Sebastian mumbled, seriously considering dropping Kurt into the first puddle he saw.

“Besides, d-do you know who came…who came with them?” Kurt slurred.

“I’m going to take a wild guess and say Blaine,” Sebastian answered, rolling his eyes at the question he had heard about a hundred times so far.

“Blaine!” Kurt exclaimed indignantly. “I mean…what the…what the fuck…”

“He probably thinks you want to get back together with him,” Sebastian muttered in a deadpan tone, parroting the topic of conversation for the whole evening.

“He probably thinks I want to get back together with him,” Kurt railroaded on. Sebastian chuckled, shifting Kurt’s weight against his hip as they stopped to wait for another light.

“Don’t you still love him?” Sebastian asked, sounding more bitter than he intended. “Aren’t you guys soulmates or some such shit?”

“I do!” Kurt groaned, his voice rising in volume and pitch. “Or I did…I do…I do-don’t know! He’s a cheater! A cheater! Do you know what that means?”

“It means he cheated?” Sebastian grunted, holding more of Kurt’s weight upright. Kurt seemed to stop walking the more he lamented.

Kurt sighed, his comical tirade coming to a screeching halt.

“It means he destroyed something…something sacred,” Kurt said softly, gulping down air to silence a sob. “Every-everything we had t-together. He tur-turned it into something dirty. He-he made it all a lie.”

Sebastian breathed in deep, letting the cool evening air fill his lungs and clear his mind. He turned Kurt to face him, putting a finger beneath his chin to pull the focus of his stormy eyes.

“Not that I’m defending the asswipe,” Sebastian started calmly, “but one stupid mistake doesn’t make what you guys had dirty.” Sebastian raised a hand and brushed a stray clump of hair out of Kurt’s eyes. “You loved each other.”

“H-have you ever cheated on anyone?” Kurt asked.

Sebastian shook his head slightly.

“No,” he admitted. “But…sex isn’t exactly sacred with me.”

Kurt squinted his eyes, trying to focus more on Sebastian’s face. He tilted his head from side to side to clear his vision.

“D-did you ever think about kissing me?” Kurt asked softly, slowly closing the distance between them.

Sebastian felt his heart slam to a stop at the thought of Kurt’s lips pressed against his. He leaned back a bit, giving himself some space to think.

“Ask me again when you’re sober, Hummel,” Sebastian said.

Kurt furrowed his brow.

“Why?” Kurt tried to pull Sebastian forward, and Sebastian wanted to follow, wanted to get caught up in the beautiful spell that was the illusive Kurt Hummel.

But again, he pulled away.

“Because,” he said, swallowing hard, “I don’t want to lose something I can’t get back.”

Kurt opened his eyes wide, almost as if he suddenly sobered up enough to realize what he was about to do. Sebastian felt the moment slipping, wanted desperately to do something to grab it back.

Sebastian knew better. Kurt was drunk. Kurt might be in love with someone else.

Kurt would most likely regret him.

Sebastian let the moment go.

Kurt turned, lurching forward, dragging Sebastian down the street.

“I always wondered what it would be like to kiss you,” Kurt said conversationally. “But would that be considered narcissism? Because you sort of look like me except I dress better, my hair is exceptionally better styled, I’m a lot more skilled at the art of accessorizing, and I have a much more extensive vocal range. But you _are_ taller. Did any of that make sense?” Kurt turned to look at Sebastian expectantly with a dopey smile on his face.

“Yeah,” Sebastian bit out, “I caught the first few words, but then all I heard after that was ‘fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you.’”

Sebastian stopped walking and looked at the apartments around them, all tall, gray buildings with black, metal fire escapes, almost exactly the same.

“Where the fuck do you live, Hummel?” he asked, breathless from half-carrying Kurt almost ten city blocks.

Kurt’s eyes went wide with panic. He shook his head vigorously, ignoring the way everything spun sickeningly with the movement.

“No! No, you can’t take me home!” Kurt whined. “I can’t go there right now.”

“Oh for heaven’s sake why not?” Sebastian asked, running a frustrated hand through his hair.

“Because…because _he’s_ there,” Kurt whispered, looking around them nervously as if somehow Blaine would appear just by the mention of his name. “He’ll see me like this and…and he’ll want to take care of me. He’ll be all lovey-dovey. He’ll sit up with me all night while I puke, and then he’ll be _convinced_ that we’re made up!”

“Probably,” Sebastian agreed, not too sympathetically.

“And it’s not just him,” Kurt continued seriously. “All of them want us back together. I mean, you should have seen Rachel when she greeted him at the door, with her tiny hopping and her little clapping hands…” Kurt performed a mock impression, and Sebastian laughed, picturing the petite brunette bouncing on the balls of her feet, clapping her hands in rapid succession.

“Then there’s Sam,” Kurt groaned on louder, no longer concerned with who might hear them, “with their secret handshake and their Blam thing.” Kurt scrunched his face in disgust. “What the hell is that anyway?”

Sebastian shrugged, his shoulders trembling with laughter.

“I don’t know,” he replied.

“And when he walked in, they presented him to me like…like a cake, or something!”

Sebastian laughed harder, almost doubling over. Kurt crossed his arms, raising an unamused eyebrow.

“Okay, Hummel,” Sebastian said, recovering quickly, wiping tears from his eyes, “if you didn’t just picture your ex covered in frosting, than it’s been way longer since you’ve had sex than I thought.”

“Hmph!” Kurt scoffed. “I always thought you had an eye for Blaine. Everybody does. Even Rachel wanted to make out with him.”

“Actually,” Sebastian said, returning an arm around Kurt’s waist, “I kind of always had my eye on someone a bit better.”

Kurt felt a small spark ignite in his stomach at Sebastian’s words, and in the way Sebastian held him possessively against him. Kurt turned his head, facing Sebastian’s profile as he looked down the street the way they came.

“So, where do you want to go?” Sebastian asked, trying hard to ignore the blue-grey eyes aimed his way.

“Can…can we go to your place?”

Sebastian turned to face him, sucking in a sharp breath of surprise.

“You want to go to my apartment?” he asked, needing clarification.

Kurt nodded.

“Yes…if that’s alright.”

Kurt’s eyes were guileless, unblinking as they pleaded silently with Sebastian.

“Well, fuck Hummel.” Sebastian tried to sound cocky and put-out by Kurt’s request, but he couldn’t. Kurt quietly begging to go to Sebastian’s place didn’t bring that reaction out in him. He fumbled in his pocket for his cell phone. “My place is uptown. I’m calling a cab.”

By the time they reached his apartment, Sebastian was thoroughly confused. He didn’t know what to make of Kurt clinging to him the entire ride uptown, his contented sighs as he relaxed against him, or the way he hummed softly and wrapped his arms around him tighter. Kurt couldn’t be drunk anymore…at least, not as drunk as he was when Sebastian first arrived at the bar. It’s not that Sebastian hadn’t imagined this, except the circumstances in his daydreams were much different. In his dreams, he and Kurt were out on a proper date. It would be awkward at first, considering their history. Sebastian would remark on Kurt’s taste in clothes, and Kurt would likely spar back with a comment about his hair. Sebastian would question aloud why he even asked Kurt on a date to begin with, and Kurt would likely respond by flirting with someone else in an attempt to make Sebastian jealous.

But by the end of the night, they would end up tangled comfortably in each other’s arms, in the back of a cab like this one, heading to his apartment, and hopefully Kurt would spend the night.

Well, they had done the verbal sparring, and they were in a cab wrapped in each other’s arms, heading to his apartment for the night.

Sebastian bit his lip, looking down at Kurt’s sleeping face. There were no loopholes for this one.

He didn’t want to win Kurt by default.

He didn’t want to be a rebound fuck.

Sebastian hauled a still sleepy Kurt out of the cab and into his building, riding with Kurt wrapped around him up the elevator to his apartment on the fortieth floor.

“Wow,” Kurt said when he saw the view out of the picture windows. “This is incredible.”

“Yeah, well, it has a few perks.” Sebastian’s eyes scanned the large, lonely apartment before settling on Kurt, staring out the window with his hands pressed against the glass, like a kid looking through a toy store window. Sebastian smiled.

Not lonely for one night at least.

Kurt turned, and caught Sebastian staring. Sebastian looked down at his shoes and cleared his throat, trying to ignore the attractive blush coloring Kurt’s cheeks.

“Uh, why don’t you hop in the shower?” Sebastian offered.

“Why?” Kurt asked, looking down at his clothes. “Do I stink?”

“Well, I thought it might make you feel better,” Sebastian said, leading Kurt into the bedroom. Kurt watched Sebastian rifle through drawers, pulling out a t-shirt and sweatpants, which Sebastian held out to him. “But to be honest, you do kind of smell like puke. I just hope it’s all yours.”

Kurt took the offered clothes, an expression of deep mortification draining the color from his face. Sebastian pointed to a door behind Kurt, trying not to laugh.

“Towel’s hanging on the door.”

Sebastian had never really considered the act of showering to be all that intimate. Like a lot of things in his life, it was just a means to an end. At the moment, it took all of Sebastian’s willpower not to open the bathroom door and join Kurt. The thought of Kurt using his soap, washing his hair with his shampoo, drying off with his towel, and then wearing his clothes…and oh God! He wouldn’t have any underwear on.

It only got worse when Sebastian took his own shower, imagining Kurt’s naked body beneath the hot water spray, soap sliding over his porcelain skin, steam rising up around him as he bathed…

Sebastian contemplated masturbating in the shower, but it struck him as tacky and desperate.

He walked into the bedroom to the glorious sight of Kurt lying in his bed, already half-asleep, and he suddenly wished he had opted for tacky and desperate.

Sebastian switched off the lamp and grabbed a pillow. Kurt grabbed his hand.

“Where’reyougoing?” Kurt asked, the sentence sounding more like one single word.

“I’m going to sleep on the sofa,” Sebastian replied. Kurt tugged on his arm weakly.

“Stay here,” Kurt muttered. “Don’t want to be alone.”

Sebastian knew better. He knew sleeping beside Kurt was a bad idea. He knew the responsible thing to do was to say no, and retreat to the couch.

He kept reminding himself of that when he returned the pillow to its spot and climbed onto the bed. Kurt scooted closer to him. He threw an arm over Sebastian’s body and rested his head on his chest.

“Kurt?” Sebastian asked, resisting the urge to fold Kurt up in his arms. “What are you doing?”

“Do you mind?” Kurt muttered.

Sebastian could tell by Kurt’s voice that he was already mostly asleep.

“No,” Sebastian whispered into the dark. “No, I don’t mind.”

The sunlight warmed Kurt’s face, but he turned away from it. Kurt’s head didn’t pound half as much as he imagined it would, but he still was in no hurry to wake up. He was too comfortable. He felt warm and safe. He opened himself to the sensations around him. He knew the smell of the man beside him. He knew the hand that held his. He knew the warmth of the body curled against him.

He knew that none of it belonged to Blaine.

Kurt smiled.

“Good morning,” a soft voice whispered.

Kurt opened his eyes slowly, blinking to adjust to the morning sunlight. He saw Sebastian staring at him. He wore a crooked half smile on his lips, but his eyes gave him away. They were filled with worry and a touch of fear.

They looked vulnerable.

“How’d you sleep?” Sebastian asked. He wondered if he should let go of Kurt’s hand.

He didn’t want to.

“Good,” Kurt answered, trying not to sound awkward.

“How’s your head feel?”

“Better. Much better than I thought it would.” Kurt nodded, bobbing his head absently as he tried to think of more to say. He bit his lip as he kept his gaze locked on the sincerity of Sebastian’s eyes.

“Can I ask you a question?” Kurt asked.

Sebastian nodded. His smile slipped a bit.

Kurt smiled wider.

“Did you ever think about kissing me?”


	4. The Snake Charmer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the anon prompt 'snake charmer'. Kurt and Sebastian are in love, traveling in search of something important, something that will break a terrible curse. Romance, angst, AU, with a touch of the supernatural. Warning for mentions of snakes and sex.

The sun made its appearance earlier than usual and refused to be ignored. By noon, the tiny marketplace baked beneath its relentless glow so that the ground cracked, and any drop of moisture sizzled immediately and evaporated away. Undeterred, the bazaar teemed with the unwashed masses, haggling their way through their daily shopping. Vendors tried to outwit the heat by constructing makeshift tents, basic wood frames covered in light fabric to protect them from the fiery sky, but all it succeeded in doing was trapping the heat, turning what was once uncomfortable to truly unbearable.

Kurt sat alone on his intricately woven carpet, a green veil covering his face, shielding all but his blue eyes. He sat removed from the bustling mob, tucked strategically in a shady corner. He set up his rug at a distance to avoid the persistent scorching white light and mind numbing stench, but close enough that airy strains of music from his flute lured passing treasure hunters to stop and watch and listen…and hopefully pay.

Most passersby only absently regarded the snake charmers. Snake charmers weren’t unusual in the marketplace, but Kurt and his cobra drew a bigger audience than most, even on brutally hot days, which greatly outnumbered the cool, overcast days now that the full force of summer had set in.

His alluring music trapped the unsuspecting, but it was the gorgeous, venomous creature under his complete control that hypnotized them, and they paid Kurt handsomely for the honor of its company. New to this bazaar in particular, Kurt showed up to the same spot day after day, and as his popularity grew, so did suspicion from local authorities, who couldn’t understand the appeal of one vagrant flute player and his pet snake compared to the rest that their town had to offer.

It wasn’t too long before they decided to find out.

“And what do we have here?”

The crowd in front of Kurt’s carpet parted to let the chief of the guard and two of his men approach. The sour looking man in the lead, haggard from the intense heat, stopped right in front of Kurt. He was a rotund man, with piercing brown eyes peeking out from narrow slits, and a full beard covered in the ash that drifted through the air from the many food tents. The remaining onlookers dispersed quickly, leaving Kurt to face the three law men alone.

Most foreign visitors to the marketplace were wary of law enforcement; even innocent people kept their distance.

Kurt, however, was far from impressed.

“May I help you gentlemen?” he asked with the pretense of civility. “Or did you come to hear me play?”

“I came to ask you a few questions,” the chief guard said, gruff in tone. He wiped an ocean of sweat from his brow with one meaty hand, then dried that hand on the leg of his pants, depositing a swath of murky brown onto the camel-colored fabric. Kurt cringed beneath his veil in disgust.

“Well, I’m sorry, but I was just packing it in for the day.”

Kurt clicked his tongue and the snake turned to him. The men stepped back, watching in horror and in wonder as the dangerous reptile launched itself at the man’s outstretched arm. The chief almost yelled a warning, but Kurt flashed stormy eyes at him, and he froze. The snake slithered up Kurt’s arm, winding itself tightly as it went, until its entire body was but an ornament on Kurt’s sleeve. Only a bit of its scaly form and its spread hood stood erect. Eerily following their movements, the snake kept its black eyes fixed on the three shocked men.

“Do you not have a hook to control that creature?” one of the lesser guards said, eyes wide. “Or a basket to transport it in?”

“Why?” Kurt asked innocently. “ _I’m_ not in any danger.”

“I’ve heard of you,” the third man put in.

“Have you?” Kurt returned nonplussed, but listening intently.

“Yes.” The man eyed Kurt cautiously. “People say you travel from bazaar to bazaar, looking for a rare jewel that will help you break some terrible curse.”

Kurt smirked, and rolled his eyes.

“Really?” Kurt rolled his rug and tied it. “I would think an intelligent official like yourself would be more selective about what he believes.”

“They say you and this…this creature…have an unnatural relationship.”

“Do they now?” Kurt chuckled, standing with the cobra wrapped possessively around his arm. “Would you like to take that up with him?”

Kurt moved swiftly forward. The men scuttled back, the two behind their chief almost crowding behind him to get away, and Kurt laughed softly at the look of fear on their faces.

The guards watched Kurt gather up the remainder of his things. Kurt cooed at his snake as if they weren’t even there, kissing it gently on the hood like an old friend. The chief didn’t like it. He didn’t like any of it. This man was no ordinary snake charmer, no matter what he wanted them to think, and the chief would feel much more at ease once he packed up his rug for good and moved on. He tried to think of a way to make that happen sooner than later, but apart from having the man dealt with in the dead of night, the chief could come up with no other solution. Kurt tucked his rug under his arm, tossed his flute over his shoulder by its leather strap, and paying the three guards no heed, walked away.

“You’d better watch yourself, snake charmer,” the surly man spat at Kurt’s back. “I’m not sure I like your kind hanging around my marketplace.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Kurt returned as he continued on without a glance back.

Kurt walked the vacant stretch of desert outside the boundaries of town, out beyond the first dune to the nomad camp where he had been lent a tent to occupy. On his journey north, a clan of travelers had come across him. They were drawn to him first by his unburnt pale skin, strange for people living in those parts, and his sea blue eyes. After taking audience with him, watching him charm his impressive reptile, and seeing the imposing beast eating patiently from his hand, the elders of the clan took finding him as an omen, and offered him their protection.

Kurt bowed in salaam to the men standing guard, and they returned the greeting to him, as well as to his snake. Kurt walked through the encampment toward his lonely tent, bowing to those he passed who spoke blessings to him, smiling demurely to those who showered praise upon him. At the entrance to his tent, he turned his attention to the sky, and saw the sun sinking low. He hurried in and shut tight the heavy flaps, rushing to prepare. He left the cobra on its carpet with its dinner. Kurt lit oil candles and burnt incense. He quickly bathed, scenting his hair and skin with perfumes. He put on his finest clothes, ones that rarely saw the light of day as of late. His stomach swooped with such excitement that he didn’t eat a bite of his dinner, instead drinking from a flask of wine to calm his butterflies.

A voice, soft and rich like fine velvet, stirred them up again.

“I appreciate all the trouble you go through dressing for me, gorgeous. It’s such a shame I’m just going to tear your clothing off of you.”

After ten long years without hearing it, that voice of pure seduction sounded like the answer to a prayer, the fulfillment of a dream. Kurt couldn’t speak in its presence, so he didn’t. He turned and launched himself at the incredible creature, only partially human for the moment since the sun hadn’t fully set.

 _Sebastian_.

Kurt’s one and only true love, the two of them victims of an evil, sadistic curse that kept them apart for all but one night every ten years. And tonight was the night they had been waiting for – their one night together.

Kurt ran his hands down Sebastian’s body of smooth, emerald scales, feeling them shift and reform beneath his fingers as they became human skin. Sebastian backed away sorrowfully from Kurt’s kiss, not wanting to touch him with a serpent’s tongue or accidentally bite him with his fangs, but Kurt insisted, claiming Sebastian’s lips with a famished moan.

“I think we are getting closer, my love,” Kurt said, kissing the hood that still surrounded Sebastian’s head. “At least they’ve heard of us here. Someone might know something. But you have to be careful. But the officials are suspicious. Please…be careful.”

“I will,” Sebastian hissed, shutting his inhuman black eyes to absorb the feeling of Kurt’s tongue licking around the shell of now human ears. When he opened his eyes again, they were green eyes. Human eyes.

Sebastian gazed upon Kurt’s face with these eyes for the first time in a decade, and smiled.

“Ten years,” he whispered, his forked tongue rounding out and his reptilian hiss gone, “and you don’t look as if you’ve aged a day.”

“But, I have,” Kurt said sadly, taking Sebastian’s scaled hand and holding it to his heart. “In here. In my heart and in my soul, I grow older, weaker.” When he looked into Sebastian’s eyes, they were shimmering with tears. “I’ve lost ten years so far. You’ve lost twenty! I…I can’t take this much longer! Please…please tell me you’ll find it? Please promise me you’ll succeed where I’ve failed?”

“You haven’t failed,” Sebastian said softly. “You got us here. You’ve kept us alive. We’ll find the gem that breaks our curse together. I can feel it.”

Kurt nodded, but he didn’t look all that hopeful.

Sebastian sighed and pulled Kurt close, his transformation still far from complete.

“What can I give you, my love?” Sebastian asked. “What can I do to ease your burden?”

“I only need _you_ , my love. I need the soothing cool of your body to keep me sane, your mouth on mine to help me forget…for just this one night.”

“Don’t you want to wait until I’ve completely changed?” Sebastian asked, but he was already burning with want, with need, his hands on his lover’s body, helping him disrobe.

“No,” Kurt said with a stern note of finality. “I don’t want to wait to have you a minute longer.”

Sebastian leaned in for another kiss. “Then let’s not wait.”

Nights in the desert during the summer aren’t long enough for those lingering under a curse. Kurt knew that. He cursed it every day. But it’s all they had, all they were going to get, a blessing that, after all this time, was almost too cruel to be thankful for.

The nomads were lulled to sleep by a symphony of moans and felt contented, knowing that the gods they harbored were pleased with the hospitality given them. But those moans turned to sobs when the first light of the sun touched the horizon. All too soon, a slightly taller man dressed in plain clothes but wearing a blue veil, emerged from the snake charmer’s tent. The nomads bowed to him without alarm as gods are known to change shape from time to time in order to hide from the dangers of the mortal. The man headed back to town with a carpet tucked beneath his arm, a flute dangling from his shoulder by a leather thong, and a magnificent blue cobra, glittering like a sapphire beneath the merciless light of morning, wrapped around his bicep.

The man set up in the shady spot. He took his time laying out his carpet and tuning his flute. The bazaar was far from bustling yet, so he had a few moments to spare. Besides, earning coin wasn’t his goal for the day. He had a feeling that something was forthcoming.

And he was right.

This time, the guards arrived early.

The smug chief stepped up, prepared to harass the mysterious vagrant, but stopped short when his eyes fell upon the man’s covered face. Even shrouded by his blue veil with barely an inch of skin to be seen, the chief knew the man had changed.

“What happened to you?” the confounded chief asked.

“I have no idea what you mean,” the snake charmer said, nonchalantly disregarding the chief and his guards.

“Where is the man who was here yesterday?”

The veiled man looked up, then looked around, finally meeting the chief’s gaze.

“Who?”

“The snake charmer…”

At this, the veiled man looked down at his cobra, then at his flute, and back up at the flustered guard with sarcastic humor in his eyes.

“The _other_ snake charmer,” the chief groaned with frustration. “The one with the pale face and blue eyes. He had a cobra, too, just like yours. Carried it the same ludicrous way, too, only his was a deep green. A green like…like…like precious gem stones.” The chief stuttered to explain himself, looking around to find something he could compare the color to. Then he stopped, squinting inquisitively into the veiled man’s face. “A green exactly like…the color of your eyes…”

Sebastian smirked. He looked to the blue cobra wrapped around his arm. The animal slithered closer to his face and nuzzled its head against Sebastian’s chin. Sebastian sighed wistfully, his eyes beset with a tremendous pain.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

 


	5. A Kiss in the Rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a one-shot I wrote for the prompt ‘raindrop’. Kurt and Sebastian in New York on a rainy day, watching the movie The Notebook. Romance, future-fic, AU, with a touch of angst. Warning for mention of Past!Klaine. 1,104 words.

Sebastian wrapped his arms around Kurt and held him tight. Kurt cuddled close beneath the blanket he laid over them and sniffled quietly, trying his hardest not to give himself away, but Sebastian knew. He knew all about Kurt’s often irrational love for the movie _The Notebook_. He also knew all the scenes that turned Kurt from a sighing romantic into a blubbering mess. Even though Kurt refused to admit that he was biting his lip, desperately struggling to keep tears at bay, Sebastian subtly pressed a tissue into Kurt’s trembling hand. Kurt took it, and quickly dabbed his eyes.

Kurt had chosen the movie specifically to compliment the weather. Clouds crowded the sky outside their picture window. It rained on and off all afternoon. But Kurt seemed to be more overwhelmed by emotion than usual. Soft sighs followed every expression of love, a fresh stream of tears flowed after every swell of music. Kurt became unnaturally quiet, trying so hard to hide his feelings.

Kurt couldn’t fool Sebastian. The only time Kurt became strangely sad and moody this way was when he thought about Blaine. It didn’t happen often, and when it did, Sebastian didn’t hold it against him. Sebastian ran his fingertips over Kurt’s shoulder, watching them tremble slightly as Kurt swallowed back sobs. He weighed his options, trying to think of what might bring Kurt out of his funk. Sebastian discovered early on that a blow job didn’t work well in this situation, so that option was off the table…at least, for now. That also ruled out sex in general.

The make it or break it moment came; the scene no man in all known history could never hope to live up to, and Sebastian realized that for all of his vast knowledge of Kurt’s relationship with his dreaded ex, there was one thing he never asked.

“So, did you and Captain Crooner ever do the kissing in the rain thing?”

Kurt laughed a little bitterly.

“No,” he said tersely. “We never got around to it.”

Sebastian cast a glance at the gloomy New York weather. Dark, heavy clouds still loomed overhead. They had been hovering over the apartment all day. It hadn’t rained in the last half hour. Sebastian figured they were due. He stood, almost rolling Kurt off the sofa. Kurt snorted in surprise, catching himself before he fell to the floor.

“Here,” Sebastian said, tossing Kurt his jacket, “put this on. We’re going out.”

“Wh-what?” Kurt stammered, looking at his jacket lying across his legs. He blew his nose loudly into the crumpled tissue. “But…but it’s all gray and gross outside.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not really a bucket of fun in here, either,” Sebastian retorted, shrugging on his own black jacket. Kurt barely had one arm in his sleeve before Sebastian pulled him up off the sofa and helped him put it on the rest of the way. Sebastian buttoned up the front quickly, then tied a red tartan scarf loosely around Kurt’s neck. He barely gave Kurt time to grab his keys and his cell phone. He grabbed his boyfriend’s hand and raced out of the apartment, pulling Kurt along behind him like a tired, old dog.

They bolted down the sidewalk, heading for the heart of the city.

“Aren’t we taking the subway?” Kurt asked, staring at the subway entrance they were rapidly leaving behind.

“Nope,” Sebastian answered bluntly, keeping his eyes trained on the dark clouds overhead. If they didn’t make it to Central Park, maybe he could find some other obliging, remotely picturesque spot.

To Sebastian’s despair, the closer they got to Central Park, the more the clouds seemed to dissipate, revealing patches of blue sky. God rays poked through, sweeping away the gloom. Sebastian dragged Kurt all over Central Park, trying to suss out the romantic, kiss-worthy, memorable spots. They walked across the Sheep Meadow, through the Lilac Walk, along the Literary Walk and past the Olmsted Flower Bed. Kurt panted behind Sebastian as he fought to keep pace with his slightly taller boyfriend.

Sebastian kept his eyes on the sky, hopeful for even a momentary downpour, but the further into the park they ventured, the more it seemed unlikely that they would see any rain.

Sebastian was so focused on his goal that he almost forgot completely about poor Kurt stumbling along behind him.

“Sebastian, can we slow down?” Kurt gasped.

Sebastian stopped on a patch of grass, watching as more and more people came out to enjoy the fresh rays of sunshine after a day of rain. He looked around, shoulders slumping in defeat. He caught sight of a solitary hot dog cart, and his stomach grumbled.

“Do you want a knish?” Sebastian asked, his voice flat with disappointment.

Kurt grimaced, not a big fan of sidewalk cuisine, but nodded. He hoped that by agreeing he might lighten Sebastian’s inexplicably sullen mood.

“Do you want to tell me what’s going on?” Kurt asked, following Sebastian to the hot dog cart. Sebastian handed Kurt his potato pastry wrapped in grease soaked wax paper. Kurt unwrapped the hot knish carefully, waiting for an explanation.

“I just wanted to try something,” Sebastian said gruffly, taking his change from the man at the cart.

Kurt smiled down at his snack, putting off taking a bite for as long as possible.

“Trying your hand at being a hopeless romantic, Smythe?” Kurt teased, finally picking off a piece of the steaming hot pastry and popping it in his mouth.

Sebastian smirked, not looking into Kurt’s mocking face.

“So, what if I was.” Sebastian shrugged.

“I think that’s incredibly sweet,” Kurt said, putting a hand on Sebastian’s shoulder, leaning forward to kiss him on the cheek.

Sebastian turned quickly, capturing Kurt’s lips, pulling him close with an arm wrapped around his waist. Kurt yelped happily in surprised, losing himself in kissing his gorgeous boyfriend in Central Park on such a beautiful, sunny afternoon.

“God, I wanted to do that all day,” Sebastian sighed. “But you were so fucking mopey…”

Kurt pushed Sebastian playfully, but Sebastian held him tighter, kissing Kurt again until all thoughts of sappy love stories and annoying ex-boyfriends evaporated into the ether.

“I know what we can do,” Sebastian murmured against Kurt’s lips. “We can go back to the apartment and make-out in the shower.”

“Hmm, that’s not exactly kissing in the rain, is it?” Kurt asked coyly.

Sebastian bit Kurt’s lip in retaliation.

“It’s kissing and getting wet,” Sebastian argued. “Besides, a shower’s kind of like rain. I think we’ve got our bases covered.”

“My boyfriend, ladies and gentlemen,” Kurt laughed. “The hopeless romantic.”


	6. Heart of Darkness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the anon prompt 'vampire'. Not everyone finds their soulmate in the same place. Vampire!Kurt Eventual Vampire!Sebastian. Romance, soulmate, supernatural. Warning for biting, blood sucking, fangs, and just a tiny bit of gore. Nothing excessive.

Kurt sat in the shadows and watched the smug, overly confident man wander the abandoned city streets. Every night, just after eleven, he emerged from his upscale penthouse on the upper east side and walked…just walked around the vacant city for hours and hours, down every dark alleyway, into every seedy corner of town. Kurt’s red eyes glowed as he watched with a mixture of curiosity and awe. Who was this ignorant man that he thought he could invade Kurt’s world unprotected, unarmed, and come out alive?

Yet every night he did just that.

Kurt found himself inexplicably drawn to this man. He gravitated toward him, but he did not touch him.

Kurt could take his life so easily. He knew what the man wanted.

Still, the mortals who had been asinine enough to seek him out over the years at least feared him, but not Kurt’s current prey. This brazen man with the chocolate colored hair, eyes like emeralds, and ridiculous amount of self-worth mocked Kurt with his very existence. This beautiful mortal’s unmitigated gall made Kurt furious…and thirsty.

Kurt watched in amusement as other vampires stalked his prize. Newbie pups drooled over him, red saliva dripping over their chins as they tracked him to his apartment, only to have their necks ripped open by Kurt when they ventured too close. Even those vampires that didn’t hunt humans, the ones who struggled so hard to hold on to their humanity, longed for a bite of him, but at least they had restraint enough to keep their distance. They could sense the claim that surrounded him. No human, no matter how irresistible, was worth going up against an Old World demon such as Kurt.

A vampire of Kurt’s age was a rare monster, so old that he had journeyed through all the stages of his transformation a thousand times: blood lust, denial, acceptance, decision, cruelty and vengeance. Now, with countless years under his belt, none of them worth counting or remembering, he had simply started to go mad.

The night had finally come when his overwhelming desire for blood, for _this_ man’s blood, became too excruciatingly difficult to ignore. Nothing else seemed to satisfy him. No amount of death, human or vampire, could settle him.

As if the burn of his own thirst wasn’t enough, before going home for the night, the shameless man turned to the empty night and yelled, “I don’t know what you’re waiting for, old man.”

Kurt felt his fangs rip into his own lip as he snarled. The man smirked as if he knew the reaction his words had prompted.

“I’ll leave a window open for you if that makes it easier.”

Then he slipped past the confounded doorman without another word.

Kurt forced himself to wait. He had yet to make the decision to give this insolent ass immortality, but regardless, Kurt didn’t want to accidentally tear his heart out of his chest before he had made a conscious choice.

A part of Kurt wanted to shut this man down permanently; wipe the conceited smirk from his face and drain him of every last drop of precious blood. Kurt wanted to watch his eyes go blank and his life slip away slowly until it was completely and irretrievably lost.

But there was another part of him, a part that Kurt didn’t want to acknowledge; a weak, hidden, almost human part of his psyche that was desperately lonely. That loneliness, always suppressed, always silent, had never been an issue before.

Why now? Why after so long?

Kurt waited till the man’s windows had gone dark before he made his move.

He growled with rage when he saw the window had indeed been left wide open for him. He was through it and settled over the man’s chest in a flash.

The man wasn’t sleeping. He lay in his bed awake, staring at the ceiling.

Now he was staring at Kurt.

He smiled.

“I thought you might not come,” he said softly. The man sounded relieved. Kurt sat back a little, confused. “It certainly took you long enough.”

“How dare you?” Kurt barked. “How dare you taunt me, you…you…”

“Sebastian,” the man offered. “My name’s Sebastian.”

“Sebastian.” Kurt repeated the name, held onto it, made the sound of it his own.

Kurt’s mind wandered for a moment. Why was it suddenly so important for him to know this man’s name?

He didn’t notice the finger that boldly traced a line down his cheek. A sudden rush of warmth sent an alarm throughout his body.

Kurt startled, shaking the hand from his face.

“Don’t touch me,” Kurt warned, his voice low and dangerous. “Don’t even look at me.”

“But isn’t that what gets you off?” Sebastian teased. “The look of pain and agony in someone’s eyes when you snuff out their life?”

“Fuck you!” Kurt sneered as he hovered just above Sebastian’s body. “I would love to see you suffer.”

Sebastian raised an eyebrow, seemingly unperturbed by Kurt’s outburst.

“Is that really what you want?”

“What else would I want?” Kurt asked.

“I know you want me,” Sebastian stated matter-of-factly.

Kurt grew angry, annoyed that Sebastian could make him lose any measure of self-control.

“What I want is your blood. That’s all I want.”

Sebastian sat up slightly, propping himself up on his elbows, closing the space between himself and Kurt.

“So…” Sebastian whispered, lips mere inches from Kurt’s, “why don’t you take it then?”

Kurt put a hand to Sebastian’s chest, pressing him back onto the bed, and felt him shudder. Kurt smiled, fangs lengthening at the scent of fear prevalent in the air.

“So you _are_ afraid after all?”

“Afraid of dying?” Sebastian asked with a slight tremor in his voice. “Of course I’m afraid of dying. I’m not an idiot. But I’m not afraid of you.”

“Then you’re a bigger idiot than you realize.”

Kurt put his free hand to Sebastian’s cheek and turned it, searching out the beckoning pulse that fluttered beneath Sebastian's pale skin. Kurt licked his lips, tracing over the tiny, rapidly beating spot with his fingertips.

He felt Sebastian sigh in contentment at his touch.

Kurt became enraged…and strangely excited.

“That’s right,” Kurt purred mockingly. “Just relax. This is only going to hurt…a _lot_ …”

Sebastian held his breath and Kurt bit him, sinking surgically sharp fangs deep into his jugular, clamping down tight. He intended to pull, wanted it to hurt, wanted Sebastian to gasp and scream, but a single taste of Sebastian’s blood touched Kurt’s tongue and he stopped. Kurt froze, astonished that Sebastian’s blood even had a flavor. Mostly, taking blood was an act of pure need, and the hot rush of it infused Kurt with adrenaline, made him feel alive. But Sebastian’s blood was different - sweet like honey, like he was meant to drink it. Different sensations exploded over him at once; sensations that had faded over time or that he chose to block out. He could smell roses growing in the garden outside, the fragrance of the night blooming jasmine that climbed up the stone walls. He heard music from a few apartments down below – Mozart Symphony No. 40 in G-minor. It surprised him to recall that he knew the piece by heart, that he could play parts of it if there were a piano available.

Kurt could feel - not in the shallow, overly-romanticized way humans felt. Every inch of him burst open, raw and sensitized like jagged nerves seeking out every sensation and pummeling him with them all at once.

Kurt felt Sebastian’s heart racing in his chest until it almost burst, but the more he drank, it started to slow, until the telltale thub-thub of its rhythmic beat softened, nearly imperceptible to even Kurt’s superior hearing. Kurt reluctantly withdrew his fangs and crept backward off the bed, red eyes locked to Sebastian’s emerald gaze, waiting with eager satisfaction for the painful throes of death to begin.

Kurt perched on a nearby chair. He watched Sebastian die. Mortals dying was usually his favorite part - the human arrogance turning to fear as realization set in. Kurt tried to grin, to spread his lips into the most gruesome, frightening grimace he could conjure, but one look into Sebastian’s panic stricken eyes stopped Kurt cold. His own realization smacked him like a fist to the face.

Sebastian was dying.

He was scared and alone and dying, with no one for comfort or company but a soulless devil.

All at once, it became too much to bear.

Kurt flew to his side in an instant. Sebastian screamed, pain hitting him like the sting of a thousand hot irons against his flesh. Kurt vaguely remembered it, but he never allowed himself to relive the experience until now. Sebastian’s arms flailed, stiff and useless, grabbing at the sheets, raking across them, searching for something.

Or someone, Kurt realized.

Kurt grabbed Sebastian’s hand and held it.

Kurt knew Sebastian was blind by now, his venom killing all his cells, destroying anything healthy and strong and turning it worthless and diseased.

“I’m here,” Kurt whispered, hoping that Sebastian might hear his voice once before that sense left him, too. Kurt didn’t understand why easing Sebastian’s pain was suddenly so important to him. If he could solve that riddle, then maybe he’d be able to figure out why he had started crying.

“Shhh, it’ll be alright,” Kurt hushed, overcome with forgotten feelings of agony and despair.

What if Sebastian didn’t survive? What if he didn’t make it?

After all these many centuries, would the sun be enough to kill Kurt?

It took hours for Sebastian to die. The torture of it almost ripped Kurt to pieces. He stayed by Sebastian’s side until his last breath, leaning close to Sebastian’s mouth to feel its heat as it escaped his body. Then he lay still, twisted, deformed, his features frozen with the mask of death. This was the point when most killers left, but Kurt stayed. He straightened Sebastian’s body, laid him out on his bed with his head resting on the pillow. Kurt shut Sebastian’s fixed, staring eyes, and closed his silently screaming mouth. When he was done, Sebastian appeared peacefully asleep.

Kurt waited.

Kurt felt the prickling beneath his cold skin that warned him that dawn was only a few short hours away, but he refused to leave without knowing that Sebastian would be okay, that he had somewhere dark to hide from the sun.

Sebastian’s eyes snapped open and searched the room for Kurt. Kurt’s red eyes locked onto Sebastian’s hungry stare, his beautiful green eyes gone, replaced with the red eyes of a killer.

Sebastian smiled, sitting up in bed and looking around, taking in the world with his new, exceptional sight, the sight that would help him hunt down prey, seek out blood and heat, even underground or in the cold of winter.

His eyes returned to Kurt and the smile grew wider.

“You’re still here?” Sebastian asked casually.

Kurt cringed. Really, what had he expected?

“Yeah,” Kurt replied, rising from his seat. He straightened his clothes to have something to do other than stare at this gorgeous newborn. “I’m still here. I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to let you burn or not. Sunrise is in a few hours.”

“And you decided to let me live?” Sebastian teased. Kurt rolled his eyes. How was it possible that Sebastian managed to get even more annoying by becoming a vampire? Kurt shook his head in disgust.

“You’re welcome,” Kurt groaned sarcastically, making his way to the window. He stopped for a moment to look out at the sky, to gauge the sensation of heat rising beneath his skin and decide where would be safest for him to spend the daylight hours.

He waited a moment longer to see if Sebastian would try and stop him from leaving.

“So, you got what you wanted,” Kurt hissed, feeling strangely bitter and used. “You’re _immortal_.”

The word felt like poison on Kurt’s tongue. He focused on an obliging cemetery in the distance, preparing to disappear.

Sebastian vaulted silently off the bed and caught Kurt quickly, effortlessly holding him with a single hand.

“So, does that mean I get to spend an eternity with you?”

Kurt laughed.

“Who says I want to spend eternity with _you_?”

Sebastian took Kurt’s face in his hands, delicately tracing over Kurt’s cheekbones with his thumbs, mindful of his new strength. Sebastian’s body surged with Kurt’s powerful venom, replacing weak human blood in his veins. With his new eyes he could see Kurt truly for what he was, perfect and smooth, like fine, flawless porcelain. Part of him was rage and fire. Part of him was fragile and longed to be loved and protected.

“I know because you stayed,” Sebastian whispered, risking a kiss to Kurt’s blood streaked cheek, his tongue licking over the remains of a red tear Kurt had forgotten. “You held my hand. You told me it would be alright. I was right all along…” Sebastian waited a moment to see if Kurt would try and pull away. Sebastian captured Kurt’s lips gently, enjoying the new sensation of lips that were so strong, so cool, so different from fragile human skin. Sebastian smiled, barely leaving Kurt’s mouth as he spoke. “You want to be with me…as much as I always wanted to be with you.”

Kurt’s eyelids fluttered in his confusion – an unnecessary human tic that cropped up only when Kurt felt lost or vulnerable, something that hadn’t happened in so long, Kurt couldn’t even remember it.

“I…I don’t understand…” Kurt stuttered. “You went through all of this…you died…you became inhuman…just to be with me?” Kurt shook his head in disbelief. “Why?”

Sebastian rested his forehead against Kurt’s, wrapping strong arms around him and holding him tight.

“Because you belong to me. I belong to you. Not everyone finds their soulmate in the same place.”


	7. Picking the Perfect Place

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the first prompt I wrote. Someone left the word 'the' in my ask box, so I wrote a one-shot. PG13, featuring Santana, Elliott, Rachel, and Dani in the loft in New York. Kurt and Sebastian try to pick a place for dinner.

Rachel dropped down on the sofa between Elliott and Santana. Dani sat delicately in her girlfriend’s lap, handing over her half-full glass of red wine.

“So, it’s almost 8 o’clock, guys,” Rachel whined. “Are we still going out for dinner?”

“Don’t look at us,” Santana replied, wrapping an arm around Dani’s waist and pulling her further onto her lap. “It’s Lady Hummel and Meerkat Boy’s turn to pick a place.”

Kurt and Sebastian walked in from the kitchen with their own wine glasses. Kurt’s eyes went wide as inspiration struck.

“Oh!” Kurt chirped with excitement, grabbing a hold of Sebastian’s polo and tugging slightly. “Do you know what I’m in the mood for?”

“What, gorgeous?” Sebastian asked, smirking at the hand that throttled his shirt.

“The chicken with the stuff…” Kurt let go of Sebastian’s shirt and made a sprinkling motion with his hand, “…and the sauce…”

“The red sauce or the white?” Sebastian asked, raising a thoughtful eyebrow and taking a sip from his glass.

“No, no, the brownish-gray stuff. God, I wish I could remember. It was the chef’s specialty and he wouldn’t tell us what was in it, and I couldn’t tell because I had burned my tongue on those awful fries…”

“Oh, the place in SoHo,” Sebastian said, pointing animatedly, “with the overhead fans made from recycled scrap metal. Remember? It almost chopped off your hair.”

Kurt scowled, crossing his arms tight across his chest, almost spilling his drink.

“We said we’d never mention ‘the incident’ again…”

Rachel, Santana, Dani, and Elliott watched Kurt and Sebastian, their heads bouncing back and forth between them as they continued their debate.

“Okay, wait…are we talking about the place with the…” Sebastian made an obscure waving motion over his head, and Kurt shook his head vehemently.

“No, the place _you’re_ thinking about closed down. I’m talking about the other place with the…” Kurt took a stab at making vague arm gestures. Santana squinted her eyes as she watched.

“You guys must _suck_ at Pictionary,” she blurted out. Dani buried her head into Santana’s shoulder to muffle her snickering.

Sebastian tilted his head as he tried to decipher Kurt’s movements.

“Isn’t that the place that always reeks of stale beer?”

“No!” Kurt exclaimed, becoming exasperated. “The place next door to it reeks of stale beer.”

Sebastian jumped suddenly, setting his glass down on the coffee table.

“You mean the place with the plaid tablecloths!” he practically yelled with a triumphant look on his face.

“That’s the one!” Kurt returned happily. “With that awful stuffed beaver and…”

“The huge duck on the wall!” they finished together.

Sebastian wrapped an arm around Kurt’s waist and held him close. With a devilish glint in his eyes, he captured Kurt’s lips and kissed him shamelessly, well aware of the multiple pairs of eyes that watched them.

Santana’s lips twisted into a disgusted grimace.

“Well, I’m pretty sure that just killed my appetite,” she groaned.

“Then you don’t have to come,” Kurt remarked snidely against Sebastian’s kiss swollen lips. “But you’ll be missing out because the chicken caprese is to die for.”

The four friends watched Kurt lean into Sebastian’s ear. He whispered something secret and salacious that made Sebastian grab Kurt’s ass and growl in a distinctly animal way.

“Later,” Sebastian said. It sounded very much like a promise. “Go get your coat, gorgeous.”

Sebastian swatted Kurt playfully on the ass. He yelped, skipping forward, his cheeks a deep shade of pink. He glanced at the group still sitting on the sofa.

“Are you guys coming?” he asked innocently, ignoring their quizzical stares.

“Uh…yeah, sure,” Elliott said, standing and following Kurt to the door.

“Wh-what the hell just happened?” Rachel asked, grabbing her coat and slipping it over her arms. “Did they actually pick a place?”

“Didn’t you hear?” Dani stuck a few stray strands of bluish-tinged hair up into her boho cap. “We’re going to the only lumberjack rubber ducky themed restaurant in the tri-state area.”

“No,” Elliott said seriously, waiting for the group to leave before pulling the loft door closed behind him. “You’re thinking of the wrong place.”


	8. Away from the Rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the anon prompt 'raindrop'. Kurt bumps into Sebastian at a funeral. Warning for mention of character death. Future fic, mention of past!Klaine, mention of Finn.

Kurt stood beneath the raindrops and let them ruin him. They soaked his suit, dripped through his hair, rolled down his skin and traveled beneath his clothes. He didn’t acknowledge them, he ceased to care. He figured they couldn’t do more damage than had already been done, so he would try to become one with them. He would let them surround him, absorb him, leech away his pain, drown his soul.

A number of hands touched him - grabbed his shoulder and squeezed, attempting to be comforting or to find comfort, but he was too numb to take and he had nothing left to give.

Kurt could start marking death by raindrops, the way most people marked birthdays by the amount of candles on their cake. There were no raindrops at his mother’s funeral. In fact, it was a beautiful, crisp day. The sky had been cornflower blue, with barely a cloud to be seen.

Kurt counted 2096 raindrops at Finn’s funeral service. He started counting the moment the priest started reciting the Lord’s Prayer and stopped at some point after his father numbly pulled him away from the casket.

At his father’s service, Kurt didn’t stop counting until he reached close to 10,000, but by then, he wasn’t sure if he was counting the rain on his face, or his tears. They all seemed to blur together.

Now here he was, barely five years later, watching as friends of Carole’s gathered to lay her in the ground. He had outlived them all – his mother, his brother, his father, his stepmother – all gathered together with barely a plot between them, no space left over.

He decided at that moment he would probably be cremated.

Counting the raindrops now seemed pretty useless. They just seemed like a necessary evil, almost like a prop. If this had been a birthday party, it would have been confetti and crepe paper. A wedding, and he’d be pelted with rice. Somebody died, let’s turn on the rain.

The service was beautiful as funerals go. He didn’t have a hand in planning this one. He felt his time had been better spent sitting at Carole’s bedside, listening as she talked about falling in love with his father again and again, like she would forget if she didn’t repeat every detail over and over.

The Ladies Auxiliary arranged a wake down at the VFW, and soon after the prayers were said and the flowers left, the mourners made their way back to town to celebrate Carole`s life the way she would have wanted - around a table full of casseroles and Jell-O molds, not standing beside a hole in the ground.

Kurt didn’t watch the people leave. He didn’t watch as he was slowly left alone. He waited for the quiet that came with being left alone so he could say his final good-byes.

But one man didn’t leave. He stood at a distance, not too far from the casket, quietly respecting Kurt’s privacy.

His presence irritated Kurt. What was he waiting for?

 _Good-bye is a short word,_ Kurt thought. _Just say it and be gone._

Carole would want Kurt to be polite, but Kurt felt like being an ass.

“Is there something I can help you with?” Kurt bit out, not raising his eyes from the array of roses along the ground to address the blurry figure fully.

“Don’t get your panties in a knot, princess,” a recognizable sardonic voice replied.

“Oh poop on toast,” Kurt said, his head snapping up to meet the mocking green eyes staring at him. “What in gay hell are you doing here?”

“Paying my respects,” Sebastian replied. He looked around him at the empty cemetery. “So, where are your friends? I thought they’d all be here singing inspirational power ballads or something.”

Kurt looked back down at the display of roses – all white roses except for one lonely bouquet of lavender. He knew sterlings were Carole’s favorite. He had gone to seven different florists searching for them. He finally found a sad little bunch down at the Safeway. He occupied his mind examining their pathetic, wilting petals to try and quell his shame.

“I didn’t tell them.”

Sebastian didn’t ask why, just raised an eyebrow with the expectation that Kurt would continue.

“We’re all so busy, and we see each other so rarely nowadays.” Kurt sighed, looking up into the falling rain. “I didn’t want to become the kind of friends who only made it a point to get together when somebody died.” Kurt let his eyes wander over the graves and headstones, searching for anything to look at instead of Sebastian’s judgmental face. “I’ll shoot them all an email when I get back.”

Kurt chanced a glance back at Sebastian. To Kurt’s surprise, Sebastian wasn’t judging him, simply listening to him talk with an expression of genuine interest.

“Wait…what are you doing here?” Kurt asked again, suddenly realizing that Sebastian coming to pay his last respects to Carole wasn’t as normal as their deceptively comfortable tete a tete made it seem.

"Don’t be so suspicious. I have a few relatives pushing up daisies here as well.” Sebastian waved vaguely to the other side of the cemetery, where the large plots and mausoleums stood. “I just happened to see your little party from where I was, and thought I recognized your monumental coiffure."

Kurt nodded.

Sebastian nodded.

Awkwardness started to set in.

"And…how’s Blaine?" Sebastian asked with a strange hesitation in his voice. Kurt turned his head away to roll his eyes in private.

"Uh…things between us didn’t quite work out the way we imagined,” Kurt admitted.

"You mean, even after the huge, showy proposal?"

Kurt cringed at the sound of amusement in Sebastian’s voice.

"Yeah, well it seems the rest of our relationship didn’t quite live up to the hype.” A bitter edge crept into Kurt’s voice. “Anyway, he sent his regards and a beautiful bouquet of callas from California." Kurt gestured half-heartedly to a vibrant display of pure white flowers fairing much better than both of them in the pouring rain.

“That’s too bad,” Sebastian said, a little unconvincingly. “Believe it or not, I was really rooting for you guys.”

"Look, Smythe,” Kurt barked, trying to keep the tremble from his voice, “as amusing as dredging up all my pain is for you, I’m not doing this _now_ , and I’m definitely not doing it _here_. So, if you’ll excuse me…”

Kurt turned, slipping slightly on the slick grass as he headed away from the grave, his heart pulling in all directions. He wasn’t ready to leave Carole just yet, but he was, forced into doing something he didn’t want to do by circumstances beyond his control. A few feet away he made the decision to turn around, stand his ground, demand that the meerkat-faced interloper leave, but a soft voice, softer than the rain and even more poignant, stopped him.

"I’m sorry."

"What?" Kurt hissed, starting to feel the chill of the rain for the first time that day.

Sebastian walked toward Kurt, hands shoved into his pockets, face sincere and repentant. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t my intention to cause you more pain. Far from it. I just…”

“You just what?” Kurt asked, his voice still biting but feeling more curious than angry.

Sebastian looked up into the rain himself, hiding for a moment from Kurt’s scrutiny.

“I was just hoping to see old Kurt again. You know, the one who didn’t put up with my bullshit.”

"So, you’re looking for a fight?" Kurt asked aghast, pulling a disgusted face.

"Uh, no," Sebastian chuckled, shaking his head. He looked down at his expensive black shoes sinking into the shallow mud. “I’m not good at this,” he admitted. “Comforting people. It’s never really been my forte. I just thought that, you know, if I got you sparring with me, it might…I don’t know…help…”

Kurt smirked at the man in the ruined Armani suit shrinking beneath his gaze.

“So, you want to help me?”

“Yeah, well, I’m kind of shocked myself.” Sebastian looked back at Kurt, his sea green eyes smiling through a fan of long eyelashes.

Kurt bit his lip, stifling a laugh.

“Look,” Sebastian said, continuing his way over to Kurt, “I don’t suppose you want to spend the next three hours shaking hands and eating tuna casserole. Why don’t you come with me and we’ll…I don’t know…do something.”

Kurt waited a moment for the catch that always accompanied an offer from Sebastian Smythe. This time, there wasn’t one.

Sebastian countered Kurt’s look of indecision with another question.

“If you could do one thing right now, what would it be?” he asked, rephrasing the question and hoping this time for an answer.

Kurt had meant to say, “I really want to get away from the pain.”

It would have been the truest words he’d spoken in years.

But what he ended up saying was, “I really want to get away from the rain.”

Sebastian smiled.

“Now that I think I can do.”

Sebastian walked past him, starting ahead to where he had parked his black Porsche at the curb. Kurt watched Sebastian, but he didn’t follow, still a little confused by this unpredictable man’s motives.

Sebastian turned back to Kurt. Seeing he hadn’t moved, he extended a hand.

“Come on, Hummel,” he said, his voice soft despite his words. “I’m not looking forward to drowning out here.”

Kurt tilted his head quizzically.

"What are you _really_ doing here?”

Sebastian sighed a long, drawn out breath, as if he had just been caught red-handed.

"I’m in Westerville, visiting my folks. I saw the obit in the paper. I didn’t know if…” Sebastian’s cocky attitude deflated a bit. “I just thought you might need a friend."

Kurt felt a smile growing, just slightly, on his otherwise numb face.

“And you’re sure you weren’t here hoping to see Blaine?” Kurt asked, peering at Sebastian through narrow eyelids.

Sebastian rolled his eyes.

“Well, nowhere in that obit did it say ‘funeral hosted by Blaine Anderson’, so no. I came here looking for you.”

Kurt shook his head and smiled. Only Sebastian Smythe could make a truly tasteless comment resemble a compliment.

Kurt stepped forward. He looked at Sebastian’s still outstretched hand and took it in his. Sebastian might have sucked in a sharp breath at the contact, but the reaction was so subtle, so silent, Kurt almost didn’t hear it. Not much registered after Kurt took Sebastian’s hand; not the relentless stinging rain, not the gloomy clouds overheard, not the long walk around the numerous mud puddles to the car waiting for them. The only thing Kurt felt after his hand touched Sebastian’s, the only thing that grounded him for the rest of the day, was a welcome, all-encompassing warmth that he hadn’t felt in years.


	9. Gabapentin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a short, kind of sad little drabble (343 words) that came from an unexpected source - my husband who’s at work reading my fanfic while sorting Gabapentin, an anti-seizure medication. Warning for vague mention of illness. Future fic, romance, au, angst.

Sebastian loved to sleep. So many wonderful things happened at bedtime, and they all ended with a nice, refreshing slumber, wrapped up in his husband’s arms. He always looked forward to nighttime, but this night in particular seemed sinister, foreboding. Sebastian twisted in bed, unable to sleep, afraid of what might happen to Kurt if he didn’t hear him…if he didn’t wake up in time. The seizures were a new symptom, one that the doctors hadn’t warned them about. They cropped up suddenly over dinner. The first night in weeks they were able to go out some place special, and this stupid illness had to interfere the way it always did. Just when they thought they had it handled; just when they fooled themselves into thinking they were one step ahead. There was no peace. There was no rest. There was no escaping the fear.

Except Kurt didn’t look afraid. He slept like a baby, curled up by Sebastian’s side, a small smile on his lips. He sighed from time to time, deeply and content. Sebastian smirked at his adorable husband. Kurt slept like this because he knew Sebastian would sit up, stressed and burdened with worry and anxiety, making sure he was okay.

Sebastian Smythe – guardian angel.

Sebastian glanced over at Kurt’s bedside table and took inventory of all his medications. The biggest amber bottle facing him was the newest of the bunch. Gabapentin. Sebastian sighed.

“I’m counting on you, you stupid, orange, motherfucker,” Sebastian whispered.

Sebastian held Kurt tight against him, knowing there was no way he was getting back to sleep. He watched the numbers on the clock change as the minutes ticked slowly by, and started a mental checklist for the day to come.

Hire a maid. Kurt would hate it, but it had to be done.

Buy a dog. A special dog. The kind that sensed seizures before they happened.

Call Burt. He would need to see his son.

Then, Sebastian would sit down and start planning the vacation of a lifetime.

It might just last a lifetime.


	10. Wolf in Sheep's Clothing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt 'BDSM'. Rated M for bondage, heat and ice play. Future-fic. AU. Dom!Kurt Sub!Sebastian. Sebastian goes to Scandals looking to get laid and runs into an innocent looking man he can't wait to get on his knees. Things change drastically once Sebastian gets him home.

Kurt watched the white wax melt around the lit wick, the golden flame flickering every time Kurt breathed. The melting process fascinated him, his gaze fixated on a single drop that formed and grew as more hot liquid wax joined it. Then, with a pregnant pause and a slight bounce, it broke free and fell. Sebastian hissed as the scorching hot droplet made contact with his skin, sparking off a fantastic array of sensations – a piercing moment of intense heat which bled away almost immediately to an erotic crackle as the hot liquid cooled and hardened. Another drip joined it, then another, wax dropping like tiny explosions and igniting every nerve in Sebastian’s body. With a wicked giggle, Kurt poured a line of hot wax down Sebastian’s chest, threatening to travel lower, to more sensitive, delicate areas of skin. Sebastian’s green eyes went wide with fear. He tugged on the leather restraints that kept him tethered to the bed frame, clenching his teeth in anticipation of the pain.

“Don’t worry,” Kurt purred. “I’m not sure you’re ready for that yet…but soon.”

It sounded like a threat _and_ a promise.  Secured by a restrictive metal cock ring, Sebastian’s cock ached.

Kurt grinned, a devilish curl of his tempting pink lips that accentuated the mischief shining in his blue-grey eyes. He crouched over Sebastian’s body like a cat; but not a sweet, docile house cat. More like a wild and untamed jungle predator, and Sebastian, hands locked above his head in thick, leather cuffs chained to the wooden slats of his headboard, felt an awful lot like prey – weak, vulnerable, helpless.

Another drop hit Sebastian’s skin, dangerously close to his nipple, and he bucked up. Kurt’s grin slipped immediately to a terrifying frown. He put a hand to Sebastian’s chest, right in the center of a patch of thick wax, and pushed down hard. Sebastian groaned, his skin stinging beneath Kurt’s hand. He fell back hard on the mattress.

“Bad dog!” Kurt growled, bearing perfect, white teeth. “Now sit! And stay…”

Sebastian watched Kurt sit up and stare down at him with blank eyes, but he could see Kurt’s mind working. Kurt sat like a statue, his body wrapped in sinful black vinyl, such a stark contrast from the outfit he wore when Sebastian approached him at Scandals.

Bored, horny, and alone, Sebastian had gone out to the bar, prowling for someone to wrap their mouth around his dick. He stumbled on Kurt, sitting on a barstool, nursing a Shirley Temple. Sebastian usually went for the muscular, body builder type; guys who dressed in jeans and t-shirts, and generally had an IQ to match their shoe size. Kurt’ s long, lean body draped in head to toe Alexander McQueen and straddling the boundary between masculine and feminine mystique definitely did not fit Sebastian’s image of a perfect one-night stand. But pickings were slim, and Kurt, with a demure blush rising to his porcelain cheeks and his wide, innocent blue eyes made Sebastian’s blood boil. He salivated at the thought of getting this frightened looking man on his knees.

How did the tables turn so drastically?

The wax travelled down the candle and settled on Kurt’s hand, forming drips and rivers that hardened almost on contact, but Kurt didn’t even flinch. Sebastian swallowed hard as Kurt’s eyes swept over him. Sebastian was used to lovers looking at him. Usually he preened under the appreciative gaze of someone he intended on fucking, but for some reason this was different. He felt exposed. He gritted his teeth, desperate to regain some control.

“So, is that all you’ve got, princess?” Sebastian murmured, recapturing his cocky grin.

Kurt took a moment to respond, tilting his head curiously.

“Princess?” he repeated. Then he laughed. “Is that what you see when you look at me?”

Sebastian hadn’t given it any thought. ‘Princess’ was just one of his patented insults.

“No,” he said seriously. “It’s not.”

Kurt extinguished the flame of the candle with his fingers, setting the taper aside. He crawled slowly over Sebastian’s body, inching over his wax covered chest until he looked deep into his eyes. Sebastian could smell Kurt’s sweet vanilla scent. It seemed to cover every inch of him. Kurt bit his lip. Sebastian watched the teeth work over the delicate skin. He wanted those lips on his skin. He burned to find out if Kurt tasted like vanilla, too.

“Then, what do you see?” Kurt asked, mouth hovering dangerously close to Sebastian’s eager lips. “What do you see when you look at me?”

Sebastian waited a beat, not wanting to rush into an answer.

“I think you’re stronger than you appear,” he started.

Kurt sat back, his brow furrowed.

“Do I look weak?” he asked.

“You…you did…” Sebastian stammered, “you know, before…at Scandals.”

“Hmm,” Kurt hummed as he nodded, considering this. “What else?”

“I think…I think you’re sexy…”

Kurt chuckled.

“Sexy?” He sounded almost disbelieving as he repeated the word. “You think I’m sexy?”

Sebastian saw Kurt’s walls, carefully constructed around vinyl catsuits and leather cuffs, come down a little. Kurt’s cold eyes softened.

“Yeah.” Sebastian’s lips twisted into a more genuine smile than his signature cocky grin. “In fact, I think this whole BDSM thing you got going here…super-hot.”

Kurt nodded again, reaching beside him to a bowl that Sebastian had noticed only briefly before, but had no idea what Kurt had put in it. He saw Kurt pull out a single cube of ice and slip it into his mouth.

“Go on,” Kurt said around the ice, reaching for another piece. Sebastian’s eyes followed Kurt’s hands as he placed another piece in his mouth.

“I think…you seem really interesting,” Sebastian continued, finding it hard to talk while Kurt moved the ice around his mouth, licking over the blocks with his delicious looking tongue. “I would really like to get to know you.”

“Know me, huh?” Kurt mumbled. He started biting down on the ice, cracking the blocks into pieces and swallowing them, reaching into the bowl for more. “Well, I’ll tell you what…let me finish and maybe I’ll let you take me out for coffee.”

Sebastian smirked. He thought over his situation for the moment. Tied up with Kurt on top of him; he figured sex was pretty much guaranteed.

“I think I can do that,” he said, relaxing into the mattress and waiting for whatever Kurt had planned.

Kurt’s sudden and menacing grin wiped the smirk off Sebastian’s face.  

“If that’s what you think…”

Kurt moved quickly, crawling back down to Sebastian’s legs and sinking his mouth over his straining erection. The intense cold of ice still melting in Kurt’s mouth turned ache into agony. Sebastian screwed up his face, his eyes squeezing shut. He bit hard on the inside of his cheek to keep from screaming.

Kurt raked a hand down Sebastian’s chest, nails tearing through the wax and scoring marks over Sebastian’s sore skin.

Sebastian’s screaming couldn’t be helped this time.

Kurt pulled off Sebastian’s cock and laughed.

“If that’s what you think, then you’re in for a long night.”


	11. Brittany

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On his way to work, Sebastian starts getting obscure (and somewhat disturbing) text messages from an unknown number that he assumes are from his boyfriend…until he realizes they aren’t, and that his boyfriend might actually be in danger.
> 
> I got a sort of obscure message in my ask from an anon - Brittany. I wasn’t sure if that was a prompt or not, so I decided it was. FutureFic AU that assumes Kurt didn't know Brittany or Santana in high school, and didn't meet Dani in New York. Also, not necessarily Blaine/Klaine friendly. Warning: for overall creepiness and mention of death (not Kurt or Sebastian), also mention of blood and a minor injury. Also includes a sort-of disturbed Brittany.

_You have such a beautiful boyfriend, Sebastian._

It was the most random text message Sebastian had ever gotten. He thought for a moment that it was from the man himself, reminding Sebastian for the thousandth time how fucking lucky he was that he had left Blaine once and for all to live a life of sin in New York with him, but this text came from an unknown and blocked phone number.

Sebastian quickly typed a reply.

_Yeah, I know. So what of it, creeper?_

Maybe it was Blaine, sore and licking his wounds, deciding to be an immature dick. But he also hoped Kurt hadn’t bought himself a new iPhone and was texting him from it. It would be a lonely night on the sofa for Sebastian if he had just called Kurt a creeper.

He waited for a response to his message, hoping for a clue to the mystery texter’s identity.

He didn’t have to wait long for the creepy texts to continue.

_He has such gorgeous blue eyes._

Sebastian smirked as he raced for the subway before the doors closed.

_His skin is soft, like the petals of a rose._

Sebastian furrowed his brow. It had to be Kurt. Sebastian had just sent him roses that morning…three dozen sterling roses, Kurt’s favorites. He suddenly felt completely and uncomfortably aroused, wedged in between an older, Japanese lady, and a young, athletic college student inside the confines of the cramped train car. Yes, Kurt’s skin was soft like rose petals. Sebastian always told him exactly that. The thought of running his fingers over Kurt’s skin had him fully hard and wondering if he could get to their apartment for a quickie then back to work before the end his lunch break.

Probably not, but it would be worth canceling his afternoon appointments for.

_Yes, beautiful. Tell me how soft your skin is. Are you touching yourself now?_

He waited for Kurt’s answer, waited for Kurt to tell him that yes, he was touching himself. That he was naked in their bed, wrapped in the Egyptian cotton sheets, palming himself through the fabric, moaning like a whore…moaning Sebastian’s name.

_His hair is fluffy…like the fur of a cat._

Sebastian jerked back away from the screen, as if the ridiculous words had slapped him in the face. He re-read the text again to be sure he read it right. No…that wasn’t Kurt. That didn’t sound like Kurt at all. Kurt hated cats, for one. And fluffy? Sebastian couldn’t recall Kurt ever using the word fluffy.

Someone was messing with him.

_Okay…I’m done with this now. Who the fuck is this?_

Sebastian tapped his foot as he waited for an answer. He didn’t have time for this shit. He had three meetings this morning and he was already running ten minutes late.

_Those were beautiful roses you sent. Beautiful roses for your beautiful boyfriend._

That message made Sebastian go cold, his mind detaching from his body, separating his rational mind from the emotions that started spiraling chaotically through him. If Kurt didn’t send that message, who else knew about the roses? The florist, of course, but Sebastian had been using the same place for years, and they’d never given him any trouble. Physically he stood frozen, making no move to blink or breathe, even as his subconscious acknowledged that he had missed his stop. His mind screamed to make sense of these stupid texts, to find the sender and throttle them for this asinine prank.

Another message came in and his heart stopped, squeezed to a halt by the fingers of dread.

_So beautiful to look at. So beautiful on the outside. Do you think he’s just as beautiful inside?_

Sebastian looked around him, for some crazy reason expecting someone on the train to have the answers, to tell him exactly what was going on. Sebastian composed a text, but to Kurt’s phone number.

_Hey, Kurt. Just wondering how you’re doing. Could you send me a text back?_

At the next stop, Sebastian jumped off the train, crossed the tracks, and waited on the platform for a train that would take him back out of the city towards home. He stared at his iPhone screen, willing Kurt to text him back and tell him everything was alright.

Sebastian relaxed when a text from Kurt’s phone flashed on his screen.

_Nope…you’re talking to me, handsome, not your pretty boyfriend. ;)_

Sebastian felt his knees wobble as he re-read the message.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Sebastian roared, looking down the tracks for the train. He glanced around and found a pillar with the train schedule posted on it. He read the schedule and cursed again when he saw he had ten minutes till the next one.

Sebastian read the text over and decided he couldn’t wait. He abandoned the platform, raced down the stairs, and barreled up the street.

_Do you think he’s just as beautiful inside?_

What did that mean? What the fuck did that mean? Why would someone who had access to Kurt’s phone be asking Sebastian that question?

Sebastian tried not to think about it as he rushed back uptown.

***

Brittany loved looking at the beautiful unicorn. His shimmering blue eyes, like the clear summer sky, opened wide with surprise as they focused on her. Her fingers brushed his hand and she felt how heavenly soft and smooth his skin was. His hair, chestnut brown with golden highlights, reminded her of her best friend, her favorite cat, her only constant and true companion all throughout her childhood. She nearly lost it when he died a year and a half ago, having overdosed in the night. She couldn’t believe it, not after he had worked so hard to successfully kick his Ecstasy addiction. But she had seen the signs. He had stopped eating, slept too much, sputtered about madly sometimes, then lay completely still with a glassy stare, his chest barely moving when he breathed. She should have done something, should have found him help sooner. Now he was gone and she had nothing left. Nothing at all.

Maybe this unicorn could be her new friend, or even better, her new pet.

She twirled a strand of her long blonde hair around her finger as she toyed with the unicorn’s boyfriend. At first, she complimented him, but his boyfriend called her a creeper, and that made her angry.

Angrier than the day the WB canceled _One Tree Hill_.

Angrier than when she lost the election for student body president.

Angrier than when her girlfriend left her for some singing waitress.

She had just been to see them. She smiled at the memory.

The amount of blood in two human bodies astounded her.

Showering and finding something clean to wear almost made her late for this delivery.

She looked Kurt over from head to toe, imagining what it would be like to take him home with her. She had a collar she thought would fit him fine. It was brown leather and covered with rhinestones. It would accentuate the highlights in his hair and set off his porcelain skin perfectly.

She sighed.

 _Kurt_.

The unicorn’s name was Kurt.

It said so on the card in the flowers.

Just looking at Kurt made her feel happy. Unicorns possessed magic. They made the world more beautiful. With Kurt as her pet, there would be no limits to what Brittany could do.

Brittany giggled as she rinsed the blades of the kitchen shears. Calculating in her head, she figured Sebastian wouldn’t be back for over an hour after her last text message from Kurt’s phone.

It was time to see if Kurt was as magical as he seemed.

***

Sebastian tasted copper in his mouth as his feet pounded the pavement. He dodged buses, leapt from cab to cab, had been cursed at in more languages than he had ever heard in his life. He texted Kurt’s phone feverishly as he ran, spending more time with his head bent over his screen than actually looking where he was going. He collided head on with a parked car and flipped completely onto his back in the street. A crowd of onlookers tried to help him, but he shoved them aside and sped away.

“Kurt!” he screamed at his phone. “Kurt! Answer your fucking phone, Kurt! Answer the God damned fucking phone, you stupid son of a bitch!”

Kurt didn’t answer, and the creepy texter didn’t send any more messages.

Sebastian begged for something, needed something. He had already spent too much time not knowing what was going on.

“Fucking fuck, Kurt! Pick up your phone, you…you…”

Sebastian couldn’t curse Kurt out anymore, not even in anger. He didn’t hate Kurt. He loved Kurt. He loved Kurt more than he could admit, even to himself.

He hated himself for not saying it.

He hated himself for being an ass.

He hated how proud he was that he managed to convince Kurt to break up with Blaine, but he wouldn’t change a thing.

He wanted Kurt.

He needed Kurt.

“Kurt, where the fuck are you!?”

Streets turned into sidewalks and sidewalks turned into stairs. Down a carpeted hallway, Sebastian flew, straight into the elevator and stopped. He tried to slow his frantic breathing, bordering on the verge of passing out, but nothing worked. His body wouldn’t obey. His mind swirled with a hundred possibilities.

All of those cryptic messages turned into words that he could hear taunting him in his head.

_You have such a beautiful boyfriend, Sebastian._

_He has such gorgeous blue eyes._

_His skin is soft, like the petals of a rose._

_Do you think he’s just as beautiful inside?_

He fumbled with his keys, forcing them into the key hole, kicking at the door with his foot.

“Kurt!” Sebastian screamed. “Kurt, open this door! Kurt!”

The door swung open.

It was never locked.

Sebastian stood still in the quiet apartment.

A quiet and _empty_ apartment.

Sebastian slowly stepped inside.

He heard something crunch beneath his feet.

He looked down and saw the hardwood floor littered with broken glass. Roses lay scattered everywhere – on the floor, on the kitchen counter, in the sink.

Sebastian walked over to the counter. A half-full vase sat beside a pair of kitchen shears and Kurt’s iPhone…the screen shattered, stained with a sticky substance that looked like cough syrup, maybe? Or blood…

Suddenly, Sebastian noticed blood everywhere – drops on the floor, drops on the counter, drops on the petals of the roses and trailing into the sink.

Sebastian wanted to scream.

At some point, his body finally caught up with his head and he _was_ screaming. He cried and screamed, grabbing the shears in his hands and wringing them in his fists, unsure of what might have happened here.

Where the hell was Kurt!?

“Kurt!” he screamed, his voice broken, his body shaking, his mind and heart shattering. “Kurt!”

“Sebastian?” a sing-song voice called out from the bathroom. “Sebastian? Are you home already?”

Sebastian’s screaming came to a full stop. He spun around, holding the shears defensively. He watched the bathroom door open and Kurt stepped out, his hand wrapped with white gauze.

“Sebastian? Honey?” Kurt approached Sebastian, slowly when he noticed the shears in his hands. His usually well put-together boyfriend was a wreck – eyes wide and red, hair sticking straight out all over, cheeks flushed. He looked like he’d gone mad, holding the kitchen shears in one hand as if ready to strike anyone who came close to him.

Sebastian focused on Kurt, alive and well, eyes full of confusion and concern. The shears tumbled from Sebastian’s hands, falling to the floor with a loud clunk.

“Kurt?” Sebastian whispered through quivering lips. His knees gave out and he crumpled to the floor, eyes still locked on Kurt’s face.

Kurt threw himself at his panic-stricken boyfriend, curling into his embrace, wrapping his arms around his trembling body.

“Kurt?” Sebastian repeated. “Kurt? Wh-what happened? Where were you?” Sebastian rambled, asking questions as soon as he thought of them. “You didn’t answer your phone. Why didn’t…”

Sebastian’s mouth worked around the words, but no sound came out.

“I’m so sorry,” Kurt said, cradling Sebastian’s head in his hands. “Your gorgeous roses arrived and like a fool I dropped them. I tried to clean up the glass, but I cut my hand.” Kurt raised his wrapped hand to show Sebastian. Sebastian eyed the bandage, reaching out to touch Kurt for the first time, needing to feel him, to know he was real. He bunched his hands into Kurt’s shirt and pulled his boyfriend on top of him.

“Oomph!” Kurt chuckled as he shifted against Sebastian to make himself more comfortable. “Anyway, I dropped my phone, and then I stepped on it. It still works, but the screen is ruined. The delivery girl was helping me with the roses while I bandaged my hand. Didn’t she tell you?”

Sebastian shook his head. It sounded innocent enough, but none of it made sense.

“What…what delivery girl?” Sebastian asked.

Kurt raised his head and searched the kitchen, then turned to look at the living room.

“She was here a minute ago. Didn’t you see her?”

“No,” Sebastian muttered, feeling himself slip in and out of shock. “No, there was no one here when I got home.”

Kurt shrugged it off nonchalantly, but Sebastian felt sick.

“I guess she left,” Kurt reasoned. “She was kind of depressed. She mentioned something about seeing her ex-girlfriend with a new woman.”

“Oh, yeah?” Sebastian asked, not particularly concerned with the delivery girl’s love life but needing to hear Kurt talk to him.

“Yeah,” Kurt continued. “We talked for a good long time. I guess she didn’t have any other deliveries to make or something. Or maybe she didn’t care. Anyway, she said I made her feel better about the whole thing.” Kurt chuckled. “She called me _magical_.”

Sebastian felt normalcy returning. His heart sought out the pace of Kurt’s and matched it, slowing back to a comfortable beat. He breathed in the scent of Kurt’s shampoo, the sweet smell of vanilla soothing his senses, convincing him that everything was alright.

Kurt wasn’t in any danger.

Those crazy texts had been a fluke. A horrible prank.

Sebastian and Kurt could get on with their lives.

“The flowers are beautiful, by the way,” Kurt said, smoothly slipping the fingers of his un-bandaged hand between the buttons of Sebastian’s shirt, letting his fingertips tease over his skin.

“Really?” Sebastian unbuttoned his shirt, giving Kurt more room to play.

“Yup, even if the delivery girl was a bit of a fruit loop.” Kurt tugged Sebastian’s shirt out from his pants, followed by his t-shirt, lifting both up over his abs so he could kiss Sebastian’s chest.

Sebastian chuckled.

“Fruit loop?” he sighed when Kurt’s tongue traced over his collarbone. “How?”

“Well…” Kurt murmured between kisses and licks, “she kept saying…that my hair…reminded her of her cat…”

Sebastian held his breath.

_His hair is fluffy…like the fur of a cat._

_Do you think he’s just as beautiful inside?_

Over the sounds of Kurt’s humming and his lips kissing his skin, Sebastian heard heavy footsteps walking down the hall, getting closer.

He couldn’t see the door, opened a jar, from where he sat on the floor with Kurt in his arms, but he could tell the footsteps stopped in front of their apartment.

_Knock, knock._

Sebastian held Kurt’s arms and moved him bodily to the side, further into the kitchen where he might be shielded from sight of the front door.

“Wha---“ Kurt whimpered, his lips pursed, having been stopped mid-kiss, his eyes filling again with worry and surprise.

“Shhh,” Sebastian hushed, staring into Kurt’s eyes, hoping that he could tell from Sebastian’s stern gaze that they needed to stay quiet.

Kurt didn’t stop looking confused, but he nodded.

Sebastian rose up on his knees, trying to get a peek at the door.

_Knock, knock._

The door swung open wider with each knock.

Sebastian reached for the shears and picked them up.

A face peeked hesitantly around the door. Blue eyes found both men huddled in the kitchen, on the floor.

The face, hidden beneath a silk-screened cap and framed by long, blond hair, smiled at them.

“Ever More Florist,” the young man announced. Sebastian stood up, walking slowly toward the door with shears in hand to confront the delivery man. He was young, in his mid-twenties, smiling and obviously blissfully aware that Sebastian was armed. He wore a light blue shirt advertising the name of the florist that Sebastian had called. A spray of lavender buds bounced beneath the man’s chin as he spoke. “I have a delivery for Mr. Kurt Hummel.”

“A delivery?” Sebastian asked, looking around the apartment again to be sure the mess of roses and glass remained, that it hadn’t been a hallucination. “What do you mean?”

“I’m sorry I’m late,” the man said, his bright smile slipping, misinterpreting Sebastian’s inscrutable glower as anger at him. “But someone broke into my truck, and unfortunately took your arrangement.”

Sebastian stared at the flowers in the cut crystal vase the man held in his arms.

_Do you think he’s just as beautiful inside?_

Sebastian heard Kurt rise to his feet in the kitchen.

“Sebastian?”

His voice was soft, sounding like Kurt only now registered some kind of danger.

_Do you think he’s just as beautiful inside?_

_Sebastian’s gaze swept over the floor, taking in the broken glass, the bent roses, the drops of blood…_

_Do you think he’s just as beautiful inside?_

“We’d be more than willing to refund you the price of the arrangement,” the man offered, his smile gone completely, his voice wary, “since it’s my fault it’s late.”

_Do you think he’s just as beautiful inside?_

Sebastian couldn’t get those words out of his head. He couldn’t erase them, not when he saw the blood, the glass, the shears…

Suddenly, he heard another voice in his head – a voice that told him to grab Kurt and run.

“Go pack a bag, Kurt,” Sebastian commanded. He slammed the door in the startled delivery man’s face, not even waiting for him to be clear of the doorway, the force of the door clipping the heads of one or two roses in the process. Sebastian threw the locks and bolts, keeping him and Kurt trapped inside for the few minutes they needed to get their things. “We’re getting out of here _now_!”

 

 


	12. Easy Like Sunday Morning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt 'Sunday', here is a peek at how Kurt and Sebastian spend their Sunday Morning. Rated M for anal sex.

Kurt closed his eyes and smiled, stretching out his limbs like a cat lying in the golden sunlight, not worrying that the filtered light might be tanning his skin. The soft sheets beneath him caressed his naked body in such an erotic way as he swayed, his cock rutting gently over the decadent Egyptian cotton.

“Lift your hips a little higher, gorgeous,” Sebastian requested, his voice thick with lust and tight with every ounce of his restraint.

Kurt raised an eyelid, turning his head just enough to regard his boyfriend – the look of deep concentration on his face, the way his jaw set and his brow furrowed. Kurt huffed with mild annoyance, grabbing a pillow beside his head and shoving it beneath his hips, adjusting it carefully so he could still get that delicious friction around his erection.

“Mmm,” Sebastian moaned when Kurt finally settled into his cotton cocoon, “that’s it, baby. Thanks.”

Kurt breathed in deep through his nose, relaxing as Sebastian resumed his smooth movements, enjoying the slow drag of skin against skin. Kurt admired Sebastian’s strength. Physically, it was one of the most attractive things about him, how he could keep himself hovering over Kurt’s body for so long without a single shudder, without any sign of exhaustion. Sebastian’s athleticism made sex exciting and interesting. Hard and fast against the living room wall, with Kurt’s legs wrapped around Sebastian’s waist and Sebastian supporting all of his weight, was by far one of Kurt’s favorite positions. Sebastian had more endurance than Kurt could even fathom, and Sunday was the day they put it to the test.

Mid-morning sex in front of the picture window in the bedroom - this was how Kurt and Sebastian started every Sunday. Some people went to church. Some went out to brunch with their families. Kurt and Sebastian had their own Sunday morning ritual. It began spontaneously the first weekend Kurt moved into Sebastian’s penthouse and ever since that first time they had never missed a single Sunday. Even when they fought, Sunday sex was sacred. They pulled the blinds open wide to let in the sun, the head of the bed pushed right up against the glass, and there they stayed, for hours most times. It wasn’t just plain old sex. It was the purest essence of making love, of being connected. Being together as lovers this way wasn’t about the destination; it was all about the journey.

“G-god, Kurt,” Sebastian moaned, “baby…I’m gonna cum…”

Kurt reached out a hand and grabbed a hold of Sebastian’s thigh, pulling his body down on top of him and stilling his hips.

“Don’t you dare,” Kurt scolded. “We still have a few hours before our lunch date with Nick and Jeff, and I intend to spend every remaining minute right here.”

Sebastian shuddered, trying to calm himself, pushing away yet another orgasm.

“You…you’re such a bitch,” he groaned, taking long, deep breaths.

“Yup,” Kurt said, turning his face back to the sunlight, “but you love me.”

Sebastian chuckled as he started to move again, leaning down to kiss the spot where Kurt’s shoulder blades met.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “I love you.”


	13. Laundry Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From the anon prompt requesting ‘domestic Kurtbastian’. Newlywed Kurt and Sebastian trying to negotiate doing laundry. 511 words. Future-fic. AU.

 

Sebastian stood impatiently balancing his basket of dirty laundry on his hip, watching Kurt sort through his clothes.

“Come on, Kurt,” Sebastian pleaded, “just give me your shit so I can do the laundry. We have reservations in a couple of hours.”

“Pft,” Kurt scoffed, separating his clothes into numerous piles on his bed. “Patience is a virtue.”

“Ugh!” Sebastian groaned in frustration. He spotted a promising looking pile of t-shirts that had been neglected for more than ten minutes, and started loading them into the basket. Kurt’s head snapped up to look at him, eyes wide with horror.

“Wh-what do you think you’re doing?” Kurt screeched, grabbing Sebastian’s wrist to stop his attack on the clothes.

“I’m trying to get to the wash before my clothes are actually out of style,” Sebastian griped, watching with despair as Kurt rescued the few t-shirts Sebastian had managed to toss into the basket back out again.

“Too late,” Kurt grumbled, laying the t-shirts back out on the bed.

Sebastian raised a foot and kicked Kurt lightly on the ass.

“Oomph!” Kurt fell forward, throwing out his arms to catch himself before he hit the bed.

“They’re just t-shirts, Kurt,” Sebastian whined. “Just give them to me so I can finish the wash.”

“These aren’t just t-shirts,” Kurt said. “And they need to be steam cleaned or else they’ll fade.”

Sebastian rolled his eyes.

“Okay,” he relented. “Well, what about those?” Sebastian pointed to a pile of jeans beside the t-shirts. Kurt shook his head, clucking his tongue, refusing to dignify Sebastian’s question with a remark.

Sebastian dropped his head and sighed.

“So, how do you do your laundry then if nothing can go into the machine?”

“Well, I do some of them by hand,” Kurt explained, “and the rest get dry cleaned.”

“Dry cleaned?” Sebastian choked. “Your laundry must cost a fortune. We might as well just go out and buy you a whole new wardrobe. I think it’d be cheaper.”

Kurt stopped mid-sort, dropping the sweater he was holding onto the bed.

“You know, you’re right,” Kurt said. He turned to Sebastian, his eyes twinkling, his mouth curled into a mischievous grin. “Dry cleaning this is going to be really expensive.” Kurt wrapped his arms around Sebastian’s waist, running his hands down his back and over his ass. Sebastian moaned as Kurt’s hands ventured around to the front of his jeans. Sebastian closed his eyes, gripping the laundry basket tighter as Kurt’s hands dipped into his pockets, brushing against his rapidly hardening cock. But then Kurt’s hands were gone. Sebastian opened his eyes as Kurt pulled away. Kurt walked to the closet and grabbed his coat.

“Wait?” Sebastian stuttered in confusion. “Where are you going?”

“You do your laundry your way. I’ll do my laundry mine.” Kurt blew Sebastian a kiss. “I’m off to the mall. See you in a few.”

Sebastian watched in a stupor as Kurt left, a little perplexed. Then a thought crossed his mind. He dropped his laundry basket and searched his pants pocket.

His wallet was gone.


	14. Welcome to My Rollercoaster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt mpreg, Kurt is at the end of his pregnancy, and is an emotional wreck. Sebastian is rushing home to take care of his husband. Warning for mpreg.

Sebastian rushed through the crowded streets, dodging bicycle messengers and annoying cab drivers as he crossed against the light, racing to catch the subway and make his way uptown. All he could think of was Kurt, his Kurt home alone; his poor, miserable, pregnant husband waiting for Sebastian. Kurt, who could never get comfortable no matter where he sat or how he moved. Kurt, with his ankles swollen, trying to find the perfect position for the ottoman so he could get a little bit of relief.

Kurt, so close to the end of this roughshod journey, just a few weeks shy of his due date.

Images of a sullen Kurt propelled Sebastian along. He pushed people out of his way without realizing, and when his connecting train was running late, he bolted from the subway and ran the remaining seven blocks at full-speed, blowing by the doorman to their building with barely a nod of his head, bypassing the elevator, and sprinting up all thirty flights to their apartment.

Sebastian fumbled with his key, trying to shove it quickly into the lock, dropping it once in his haste.

He knew pregnancy would take a toll on Kurt, but he never realized just how much. Nauseous first-trimester Kurt was just too heartbreaking to watch. Fuck morning sickness. Kurt had all day sickness. It plagued him morning till evening, and even woke him from the rare, deep sleep. He could barely keep a single bite of food down. It hit him so hard that Sebastian was actually scared he would need to be hospitalized. But Kurt persevered. He rose above it all, even continuing to work while he suffered through the nausea, even designing a ground-breaking couture maternity line.

Constantly horny second-trimester Kurt came as a bit of an unexpected surprise. The nausea dissipated, almost as quickly as it had struck, and Kurt enjoyed something he hadn’t really had before – curves. Sure he had always been muscular and in excellent physical shape, but developing curves on his body had been something new. He dressed to accentuate them, but he preferred seeing them unfettered. More than that, he enjoyed the way Sebastian looked at him, the way Sebastian desired him. Sex between them was constant, and had never been hotter. Kurt texted Sebastian constantly, telling the man in detail what he would do to him the minute he got home, all the dirty dreams he had about him when he napped in the afternoon, how Sebastian better ‘get it while he can’ before the baby came. Kurt’s constant sexting was killing Sebastian. Most afternoons, trapped in his office, going over mergers and acquisitions, he asked himself why the fuck was he even working? He had a trust fund. What was he actually doing with his life that was more important than sucking off his gorgeous husband? It was all Sebastian could do from leaving early, or from locking the door and taking care of himself just to make it through the rest of the work day.

Kurt’s insatiable sexual appetite got to the point where Kurt would greet Sebastian at the door most nights wearing nothing at all, and Sebastian didn’t complain.

Overly hormonal and constantly anxious third-trimester Kurt was a different person entirely. Sebastian knew Kurt had a bitchy, and often times a dramatic side, but he never imagined that somewhere inside his husband lurked this strange contradiction of overwhelmed, despondent, hyper, tempermental, irrational, and, Sebastian feared, homicidal. His mood shifts were drastic. He was completely unpredictable.

Tonight was the perfect example of a typical unpredictable day. When Sebastian had left Kurt in the early morning, he was in a spectacularly good mood. He hadn’t woken up crying and frustrated like he did on many occasions recently, plagued by terrible dreams where he left the baby on the bus, or dropped the baby on the floor. He even had one particularly disturbing dream where he traded the baby for a pair of Jimmy Choos.

He wasn’t in pain – no cramps, no bloating. He even made Sebastian breakfast, and kissed him passionately good-bye.

Sebastian didn’t hear a peep from him all day, and his stomach began to turn. Usually he got a text complaining that the eggs smelled funny, or that the Klopeks in 3040B were smuggling cats into their apartment.

Finally, at five o’clock, Sebastian received a text.

_To: Sebastian_

_You think I’m fat, don’t you! That’s why you hate me!_

Thus, prompting his sprint uptown.

Sebastian opened the apartment door and was greeted with darkness and silence.

Never a good sign.

“Kurt?” he called into the black room, frightened for a moment that Kurt hadn’t waited for him to come home; that instead maybe he had left. “Kurt? Honey?”

A hushed sniffle answered him.

Sebastian felt relieved and frightened all at once.

What could have happened that Kurt would be crying softly in the dark?

What if something happened to the baby?

Sebastian closed and locked the door quickly, dropping his messenger bag and coat on the floor and walking through the darkened rooms, turning on lamps as he went.

“Kurt? Gorgeous? Please talk to me?”

He heard another sniffle, coming from the bedroom. The door hung open a crack, and a dim light glowed from inside. Sebastian pushed it open and peeked inside.

Kurt sat on the floor, head hanging low, legs crossed awkwardly in front of him. Sebastian could only see Kurt’s back. He wore one of Sebastian’s old, stretched and shapeless Harvard t-shirts, along with his favorite grey yoga pants. Kurt wore them 24/7. They barely covered his ass, and Sebastian could see from the sides that they rolled in the front, tucked beneath his swollen belly. He held a gigantic pair of sewing shears in his hand. Laid out in front of him were every article of clothing he owned, cut into large, jagged-edged pieces.

“Sweetheart?” Sebastian approached Kurt carefully. “Whatcha doin’?”

“I’m hideous,” Kurt whispered around a sob. “I’m a fat, hideous monster.”

Sebastian kicked off his shoes and sat behind his husband, laying gentle hands on his shoulders.

“So, you cut up all your clothes because you think you’re fat?” Sebastian asked, a little confused.

Kurt turned his face to look at him – eyes red and swollen, cheeks streaked with tears.

“What do I need them for anyway?” he screeched. “I’m never going to fit in them again!”

“Well, you’re definitely not going to fit into them _now_ ,” Sebastian joked, trying to lift Kurt’s spirits, but soon realized it was a risky and dangerous move teasing a pregnant man holding a huge pair of scissors. Kurt’s blue eyes turned to solid steel as they stared daggers at him.

“I knew it!” Kurt cried. “I knew you hated me because I’m fat!”

Kurt tried to scoot away, but Sebastian gently wrapped his arms around him, one hand holding him close, the other removing the shears from Kurt’s trembling grip.

“I don’t think you’re fat,” Sebastian said calmly. “I think you’re gorgeous. I always have. I always will. Nothing in this world will ever change that.”

Kurt’s glare softened.

“Do you mean that?” he asked pitifully.

Sebastian kissed Kurt on the forehead.

“Of course I mean that,” Sebastian cooed. “I love you.”

Kurt looked like he was considering the validity of his answer for a moment. Then his face twisted into an ugly grimace.

“You’re lying! You hate me! You think I’m a freak and you hate me! You’re going to leave me for a woman!”

“What?” Sebastian asked, astonished at the change in subject.

“Yup,” Kurt affirmed, trying to squirm away again, “because a pregnant man is a freak, but a pregnant woman is normal, so you’re going to leave me for a woman!”

Sebastian didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He shook his head instead.

“Darling, you are not a freak. You’re special. And there’s nothing you could do that would make me leave you for anyone…especially not a woman.”

Kurt settled down just a bit, relaxing in Sebastian’s embrace, looking more defeated than relieved.

“Look, Kurt,” Sebastian started. “I know this has been hard for you. So hard…I can’t even imagine. The good news is, it’s almost over. Then you and I will have our beautiful baby.”

Kurt sniffed, looking down at the destroyed pile of clothes in front of him.

“So you don’t think I’m fat?”

“No,” Sebastian reassured him. “I don’t think you’re fat.”

“And I tore up my clothes for nothing?”

Sebastian bit his lip.

“Well…”

Kurt sighed.

“Now what?” he asked, fingering one jagged edge mournfully.

“Can we…maybe…usher back in the era of super horny and constantly naked Kurt?”

Kurt answered with an elbow to Sebastian’s mid-section.

“Oomph!” Sebastian moaned with the impact. “Well, it was worth a try. How about you climb into bed, hop onto the Burberry website, and do some insane damage to my AmEx card while I order us some Thai?”

Kurt smiled.

“That I can do,” he said through a few final tears.

Sebastian smirked, kissing Kurt gently.

Kurt looked at the blissful expression on Sebastian’s face when he pulled away.

“You’re thinking about the era of super horny and constantly naked Kurt, aren’t you?” Kurt asked.

“What can I say?” Sebastian said, helping Kurt up off the floor. “It was an amazing three months.”


	15. Anniversary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a one-shot from the anon prompt ‘Anniversary’. Future fic, AU, romance, fluff.

Kurt struck the long, wooden match against the side of the box and watched fire engulf the tip. He approached the first candle on the cake. He touched the fiery tip to the first candle and smiled.

“The first time I met you, I hated you.”

Sebastian scowled.

“You didn’t hate me,” Sebastian grumbled. “I contend that you were undeniably attracted to me.”

“I hated you,” Kurt repeated in a monotone.

“Impossible,” Sebastian countered. “You eye-fucked me for twenty minutes at least.”

“You were trying to steal my boyfriend.”

“Yeah, well, you can’t steal something that wants to be taken…ouch!”

Kurt put out the dying match on the back of Sebastian’s hand, smirking at his yelp of pain. He struck another long match and lit the next candle.

“The next time I met you, I still hated you.”

Sebastian rolled his eyes and huffed.

“In fact, I think I may have hated you even more…”

Sebastian grabbed the match. He reached over the cake and lit twenty more candles.

“Let’s just assume that the next two dozen times or so, you hated me.”

“Or, there’s no assumption,” Kurt confirmed, taking the match back. “I _did_ hate you.”

“So, when did you start not hating him?”

Kurt and Sebastian both turned to the little boy with the striking green eyes and wavy, chestnut hair, sitting primly on his father’s lap.

Sebastian looked back at Kurt with a knowing smirk, challenging Kurt to explain the complexities of their twisted relationship to their five-year-old grandson.

“Well,” Kurt started carefully, concentrating on lighting the rest of the candles as he spoke, “a man grandpa loved very much broke his heart…”

Sebastian’s smirk slipped at the heavy weight of regret in Kurt’s voice. He reached out a hand and rested it gently on Kurt’s shoulder.

“…and I was sad and alone for a long time. Then, one day, I was out with some friends when I ran into your Grandpa Sebastian…”

“If I remember correctly you were drunk as a skunk and singing half-naked on the stage at _Callbacks_ …ouch!”

Sebastian reached down a hand to rub his shin where his son had just kicked him.

“Damnit! What’s up with this family? That’s _your_ son, Kurt!”

Kurt snickered, lighting a new match since the second one had died out. The little boy raised a hand to his face to hide his own giggling. Kurt looked down at him with a smile.

“Where were we, Andrew?” Kurt asked as the boy recovered.

“You were a singing drunk,” Andrew’s father answered for him. Kurt frowned.

“No, you see, that’s _your_ son, Sebastian,” Kurt said flatly. “Thank you, Seth.”

The man winked at his father, and Kurt held his breath. The two of them, Seth and Andrew, looked so much like Sebastian, it was heartbreaking. But if anyone asked Sebastian, he would say they both looked like Kurt.

“So, grandpa took me home…”

“…and after lots of cursing and throwing up, we fell madly in love.”

Sebastian wrapped his arms around Kurt’s waist and held him tight, watching as Kurt lit the final candles.

“That’s a bit of an oversimplification, don’t you think?” Kurt whispered so only Sebastian could hear.

“Well, what did I leave out?” Sebastian smiled against Kurt’s cheek.

“You left out all of the long talks…”

“All of your whining and moping…”

Kurt elbowed Sebastian, who finally managed to dodge a hit.

“All of the fighting…” Kurt reminded him.

“All of the makeup sex…” Sebastian purred into his ear. Kurt blushed, remembering their round of makeup sex from just that morning.

“Our first kiss…”

In Central Park…in the rain…after a particularly nasty fight. Kurt would never forget it. It was one of the happiest moments of his life.

“How about all of the kisses after it?”

“Of course,” Kurt agreed, lighting the last candle and blowing out the match. “One beautiful son…”

“And one gorgeous grandson…” Sebastian turned and looked at the little boy, momentarily occupied by his Flash action figure, “who looks just like his grandpa.”

Sebastian turned Kurt’s head to look at him and kissed him softly on the lips. The moment Sebastian pressed his lips against Kurt’s it was like the first time; the same electric spark, the same breathless excitement. It always amazed Kurt how much emotion could be expressed in a single kiss.

Kissing Sebastian always felt this way.

It didn’t matter that Sebastian’s hair had more grey strands every year that passed, or that they looked forward less to the new musicals Kurt would star in, or the new mergers Sebastian would make, and looked more towards retirement. Sebastian would always be that cocky, self-assured ass that Kurt fell in love with.

Kurt might feel older, but Sebastian would never age.

“So, thirty-eight years of marriage,” Sebastian said, unwilling to pull away from his husband’s lips. “If you had it to do all over again, what would you change?”

The question startled Kurt. Sebastian had never asked him that before.

For a split second, Kurt gave it some thought.

_“I don’t like you.”_

_“Fun. I don’t like you either.”_

_“I don’t like the way you talk to my boyfriend. I don’t like your smirky little meerkat face. I don’t like your obnoxious CW hair.”_

_“So, your boyfriend cheats on you, you get drunk, and you have to rely on **me** to get you home? Man, your life really sucks right now.”_

_“Why are you defending him? He’s such an ass!”_

_“I’m not defending him…I’m just…I’m so lonely without him…”_

_“I hate you!”_

_“Maybe, but you can’t tell me you don’t want me…”_

_“So, if you’re going to fuck me, Smythe, then fuck me before I change my mind.”_

_“No, Kurt. I want to make love to you, so if you’re going to be a bitch about it, I’m willing to wait.”_

_“So, what? You’re leaving now? You got what you wanted, and now you’re going to go? Fuck you, Sebastian!”_

_“No…because I’m not leaving without you. I’m not going anywhere. I want to marry you, asshole!”_

Kurt smiled.

“I wouldn’t change a thing,” Kurt admitted.

Sebastian raised his eyebrows.

“Really?” he said with a tone of disbelief.

Kurt kissed him again, slowly, savoring the sparks, enjoying the breathlessness. He smiled wider against Sebastian’s lips when he felt his husband gasp.

“Not a thing.”


	16. Once Upon a Bathroom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I combined two prompts - ‘depraved’ and ‘sex in a bathroom’ and this is what I came up with. Warnings for oral sex, infidelity, mention of Blaine and Klaine, not Blaine or Klaine friendly, and a little Kurt bitter resentment tossed in. Future fic. Angst. AU.

The bathroom stall shook with the force of Sebastian shoving Kurt up against the wall. Kurt gasped, startled for just a second. Then, his lips curled into a devilish grin. Kurt crashed their lips together, not so much kissing as devouring Sebastian’s mouth in the process.

“God,” Kurt moaned, snaking needy hands underneath Sebastian’s shirt, “it’s been so long…”

“Well,” Sebastian said, his voice muffled against Kurt’s neck, his hands fumbling with the zipper to Kurt’s jeans, “if you went to a real college like NYU…”

“Ah!” Kurt slapped Sebastian on the shoulder. “You take that back!”

“If you went to NYU," Sebastian continued, undeterred, "we could do this all the time…in the dorm rooms…in the showers…”

“On your knees, Smythe,” Kurt commanded, pushing on Sebastian’s shoulders. “Payment for insulting my school.”

“Why is it always me on my knees?” Sebastian asked, moving quickly down Kurt’s body.

“Because my jeans cost three hundred dollars…” Kurt watched Sebastian drop to his knees, his wicked grin growing wider, “…and besides, I have a feeling you’re used to this.”

Sebastian had an urge to bite Kurt’s cock for that comment, but thought of something better.

“So, have you and Blaine been comparing notes about my sexual prowess?” he joked.

A sharp kick to the shin wiped the smirk off his face.

“What the fuck, princess?” Sebastian hissed.

“Don’t ever make a comment like that again,” Kurt growled.

“Fine.” Sebastian stood, brushing off his knees. “You know, you don’t have to be in here with me. In fact, I can just leave.”

“No…no, wait,” Kurt pleaded, grabbing Sebastian’s shoulder before he could turn to leave. “That’s not…”

Sebastian looked down at Kurt with piercing green eyes. Kurt grabbed the collar of Sebastian’s shirt, smoothing imaginary wrinkles.

“What you and I do…” Kurt started, “…it’s just for us.”

Kurt pulled Sebastian close.

“I just want something that my perfect boyfriend doesn’t get to have,” he whispered, voice colored with deep feelings of bitterness.

Sebastian smiled, inching closer to Kurt’s lips until they almost touched.

“Don’t worry, gorgeous. Dapper Dan’s never had me, and he never will.”

Sebastian kissed Kurt, this time slowly, gently rutting against Kurt’s still exposed cock.

“Never’s a long time,” Kurt muttered. “And you’re not necessarily the loyal type.”

“Eh,” Sebastian said, returning to the spot on the floor. “Fair enough, but there’s hotter pieces of ass all over this city. At least I’ll shove his to the bottom of the list.”

Kurt opened his mouth to comment, but moaned instead when Sebastian wrapped his lips around him and slid down his length.

“Oh, God…” Kurt groaned, threading his fingers in Sebastian hair and pulling frantically, his whole body shivering every time Sebastian swallowed him completely.

“Do you like that, sweetheart?” Sebastian murmured, pulling off for a moment to gaze up at Kurt’s wrecked face. “Are you going to cum?”

Kurt shoved Sebastian’s face back into his crotch, filling his mouth again with his aching cock.

“Stop talking, stop talking, stop talking…” Kurt chanted, his hips pounding into Sebastian’s mouth, forcing his cock down Sebastian’s throat.

Words turned into gibberish, and then into silent, choked grunts as Kurt came down Sebastian’s throat.

“Jesus Christ! You are _way_ too good at that.” Kurt shoved his softening cock back into too tight jeans and struggling to pull up the zipper.

“Well, practice makes perfect.” Sebastian stood, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

Kurt reached a hand out to open the stall door, but Sebastian grabbed him by the wrist.

“Hey, now,” Sebastian said, closing in on Kurt with his Cheshire cat grin, “turn-about is fair play.”

“I’ll walk you out to your car later and you can bend me over the back seat.” Kurt pulled out of Sebastian’s grasp. “They’ll come looking for me if I’m in here too long.”

Kurt washed his hands and straightened his ensemble in front of the mirror while Sebastian rinsed out his mouth. Sebastian grabbed a paper towel and dried his face.

“Shall we?” Kurt said, gesturing toward the bathroom door.

“Let’s.”

Sebastian followed Kurt out of the bathroom and into the bar, stopping at an occupied table over by the dance floor.

“Hey, guys!” Kurt sang as he approached his friends. “Rachel, Santana…Blaine, honey. Look who I ran into in the bathroom!”


	17. Rude Boy Blue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sebastian goes out to get some frozen yogurt, but what he comes back with definitely heats things up. (Rated M)
> 
> (This story is a one-shot for my Deliver Me verse, occurring sometime around or after Special Delivery, but can be read alone :D)

Kurt looked over the strange, J-shaped object that Sebastian had unexpectedly brought home with him, thoughtfully pressing his fingers to his lips as he considered what it was, and what exactly Sebastian intended to do with it.

“Uh, I thought you were going out for froyo,” Kurt said.

“I did,” Sebastian replied, shoving a small, Styrofoam cup of low-fat mocha frozen yogurt into Kurt’s hand. Sebastian popped the plastic lid to his own double-fudge chocolate chip yogurt, grabbed a spoon, and dug in to his creamy dessert. “But a brand new adult shop just opened up next to The Golden Spoon, and I couldn’t resist.” Sebastian scooped a huge spoonful of yogurt into his mouth while he watched Kurt eye their new toy. Kurt put his cup of yogurt down so he could better examine the awkward-looking contraption.

“Rude Boy Blue,” Kurt read off the package in an incredulous tone over the awful name. “The easy to use design provides both prostate and perineum massage hands free, leaving you free to play with yourself or your partner…” Kurt’s voice drifted to a low mumble as he continued to read the description, his face growing pinker as each word passed his lips.

Sebastian put his yogurt on the kitchen counter beside Kurt’s forgotten cup. He took the toy out of Kurt’s hand and put it down next to the yogurt. He crowded Kurt against the granite counter top, one hand on each side of Kurt’s body, trapping him.

“Don’t play innocent with me,” Sebastian whispered, kissing up the length of Kurt’s neck as he spoke. “Remember, I went through your house from top to bottom. I saw your collection of toys. They were a little tame, so I thought I’d spice things up.”

Kurt shuddered, not only at the delicious feeling of Sebastian’s lips caressing his skin, but at the thought of him discovering what Kurt had thought of as his guarded secret. In the stress and commotion of moving, the contents of Kurt’s ‘secret drawer’ had completely slipped his mind. He was looking forward to introducing Sebastian to it eventually, when he was more comfortable with himself and with sex.

The thought that Sebastian stumbled on it on his own made Kurt cringe.

The muscles in Kurt’s shoulders tensed up as he kissed him, and Sebastian took notice.

“It’s all right, gorgeous,” Sebastian said. “Don’t go getting self-conscious on me. What about you owning a drawer full of sex toys did you think I wasn’t going to like?”

Kurt turned his flushed face away and laughed, hating how flustered he still got around Sebastian, how easily embarrassed Sebastian’s remarks made him. Sebastian took advantage of Kurt’s extended neck, licking up his skin in lazy patterns. Sebastian loved the rush of color that darkened Kurt’s skin into that sinful red blush that told Sebastian just how much he turned Kurt on.

“Do you know what I think?” Sebastian asked, his words tickling Kurt’s skin.

“What?” Kurt asked, breathless, the word almost a gasp.

“I think you’re excited.” Sebastian lifted Kurt up onto the counter. He grabbed Kurt’s legs and wrapped them around his waist. “I think you _want_ me to use that toy on you, you just don’t know how to tell me.” Sebastian snaked an arm around Kurt’s waist, his other hand grabbing the back of Kurt’s neck, holding him possessively, keeping him still so Sebastian could search out and abuse all of those sensitive spots on Kurt’s neck that made him so hot he practically melted. “But, you don’t need to tell me,” Sebastian continued between tiny licks and bites. “Your body tells me everything I need to know.”

“Really?” Kurt shivered as Sebastian sucked a bruise over his collarbone.

“Mmmm,” Sebastian hummed. “Yup. Everything you do gives it away. The way you tremble when I kiss your neck…” Sebastian found a particularly delicate patch of skin on Kurt’s neck and sucked to prove his point. Kurt wrapped his legs tighter around Sebastian’s waist, a tremor racing through his body as Sebastian’s tongue painted circles over his flesh. Sebastian pulled away, smirking at Kurt’s disappointed moan. “The way you just held me tighter, like you’re dying to have me inside you…and that beautiful moan…” Sebastian wrapped careful fingers around Kurt’s throat. “It’s in that flush all over your skin…” He leaned in close to Kurt’s ear, letting his lips dance over Kurt’s earlobe as he spoke. “And I know you flush _all_ over…”

Kurt liquefied in Sebastian’s embrace; the seduction in Sebastian’s voice way too enticing to resist. He wanted it, everything Sebastian had to give him. He wanted Sebastian. He wanted it all.

“So, I think I’m just going to take this” - Sebastian picked the toy up off the counter - “and you, and go upstairs for a little fun. How does that sound?”

Sebastian didn’t give Kurt the opportunity to object. Not that he would have. Sebastian knew that for certain. He lifted Kurt off the counter, and carried him, wrapped tightly around him, to the bedroom.

He practically threw Kurt down on the bed in his eagerness to tear through the plastic packaging of the neon blue sex toy. Kurt undressed while he watched Sebastian, not willing to admit out loud that the thought of Sebastian teasing him with that toy, playing with him, torturing him, made him hungry with need. Sebastian popped the package open with a triumphant chuckle, but set it quickly aside when he laid eyes on his boyfriend, spread out beneath him, propped up on his elbows, staring up at him in anticipation.

Sebastian leaned over Kurt’s body and kissed his lips, closing his eyes and breathing in deep, taking in the decadent scents of Kurt’s naked body – his vanilla shampoo, the new jasmine body wash he started using recently, and the most alluring scent of all, Sebastian’s own peppery aftershave, which Kurt would sneak from time to time when Sebastian left the apartment.

“Do you want me?” Sebastian breathed against Kurt’s lips.

Kurt nodded, but he knew that Sebastian wanted more.

“Yes,” he said, his voice quivering slightly. “Yes, I do.”

“Then trust me to make you feel good.”

Kurt lay his head back on the pillows and closed his eyes. Sebastian ran firm hands up his legs and down his thighs. Kurt trembled with every pass, and once Kurt’s legs started shaking, he couldn’t get them to stop.

“It’s okay,” Sebastian said in a soothing, seductive voice. “If you want me to stop, just tell me to stop.”

“Should we have a safe word?” Kurt joked, opening his eyes to catch a glimpse of Sebastian’s alluring smile, the smile that made Kurt feel safe, that told him he’d always be safe as long as they were together.

“Sure,” Sebastian said, pinching Kurt on the ass, laughing when he jumped with a yelp. “How about ‘asshat’?”

Kurt laughed, shaking his head.

“How about ‘Versace’?” Kurt suggested.

Sebastian rolled his eyes, but he relented. “Sure. _Versace_ it is.”

Sebastian lubed up one finger and opened Kurt up with gentle strokes, pushing slowly into his entrance, eyes locked on to Kurt’s heated gaze. Sebastian loved eye contact, loved watching Kurt’s reaction to his touch, especially the bold, intimate ones; the touches that turned the subtle glow of pink in Kurt’s cheeks into a burning flame.

Kurt saw Sebastian reach for the toy and he closed his eyes, trying his best to calm down. He had never used a toy like this with anyone. The contents of his ‘secret drawer’ were simply a way of getting through the lonely nights after he and Blaine broke up. What Sebastian didn’t realize was that most of those toys were untouched; gifts that Kurt bought for himself and swore he would use, but then backed out on, leaving them to sit in his dresser and gather dust.

The cold tip breeched his entrance, and he clenched, hissing in protest.

“Come on, baby,” Sebastian said, rubbing down Kurt’s thigh with one hand and laying kisses down the other. “Open up for me.”

Kurt relaxed at his touch, absorbed Sebastian’s kisses into his skin, and without much conscious thought, his legs dropped open. Sebastian swiftly slid the toy inside Kurt, positioning it so that the tip of the ‘J’ sat against the sensitive spot right behind Kurt’s balls. Kurt tried to scoot away, but Sebastian’s grip kept him in place.

“Are…are you sure it goes there?” Kurt asked, feeling completely vulnerable with Sebastian for the first time in months.

Sebastian smiled that wide, wolfish grin that was equal parts ‘I love you’ and equal parts ‘I want to eat you alive’. He shushed Kurt in a non-condescending way that put Kurt at ease.

“Why don’t you just lay down and relax, gorgeous,” he cooed, “and let daddy drive.”

Sebastian switched on the device. It buzzed like a small insect. Sebastian watched Kurt’s face for his reaction. Kurt shifted a bit, feeling mildly uncomfortable and not at all sexy. He had never really watched pornos, but he remembered that the effects of a vibrator or some other similar toy were almost always immediate, with a lot of moaning following the flip of the switch.

“How does that feel?” Sebastian asked, holding the toy in place while he massaged Kurt’s thigh.

“It’s…uh…interesting…” Kurt shifted again. It didn’t feel quite right. In fact, this blue, J-shaped toy felt like it desperately wanted to be out of him. “It’s not… _mmf_ …quite what I expected.”

“Okay…” Sebastian took Kurt by the arms and pulled him upright, grinning like he knew a secret that Kurt didn’t know…yet. “Let’s sit you up.”

“Why am I sitting up?” Kurt asked, not too thrilled about the idea of sitting on this thing.

“Because the salesperson said it might not stay in if you’re lying down, and from what I read on the package, we _definitely_ want it to stay in.”

“Was he cute?” Kurt scoffed, trying not to sound jealous and failing. He pictured, for a moment, what kind of young, leather-clad, tattooed, edgy, sex-exuding man might work in an adult toy shop.

“She wasn’t really my type.” Sebastian smirked.

Kurt rolled his eyes, knowing that his green-eyed diva had been caught rearing its ugly head. He sat up straight, legs spread wide to accommodate Sebastian kneeling between them. Suddenly, the expression on Kurt’s face changed from awkward to awe, his eyes transforming to wide orbs of cornflower glass.

“ _Now_ how does that feel?” Sebastian pecked a line of kisses from the underside of Kurt’s angular jaw, down his neck, to his shoulder.

“O-oh my…oh my God…” Kurt didn’t want to move. He didn’t want to risk dislodging the toy that vibrated exquisitely inside him, putting even Sebastian’s talented fingers to shame. The sensations within him were heightened by the pulsing behind his balls, and he was immediately reminded of the many times Sebastian had taken them into his mouth one at a time and hummed around them. He was lost to these sensations, a prisoner to them. This toy had him at its mercy. Whatever it was doing to him, he didn’t want it to stop.

Kurt’s hands locked around Sebastian’s arms and tightened, his stare a thousand miles from where they were. He was focused, barely daring a whimper, holding his breath in an attempt not to move too much.

“You like that, don’t you?” Sebastian whispered, kissing a trail down his boyfriend’s skin, causing Kurt’s muscles to twitch ever so slightly as the sensations connected. Kurt’s cock throbbed, seeming to grow with every second that passed. Sebastian licked his lips where Kurt could see, then sank his mouth over his erection. He held fast so that the gentle rock of Kurt’s hips back and forth as he fucked himself on his new toy fucked his mouth as well. Kurt moaned once his cock hit the back of Sebastian’s throat. He clawed at the sheets beneath him, fighting not to pull away.

“No, Sebastian!” Kurt squeaked. “I-it’s too much…too much…”

“Hmmm…” Sebastian pulled off to look up into Kurt’s lust-blown eyes. “Nope. I think it might be just enough.”

Sebastian clamped his hands down on Kurt’s thighs and mouthed over his cock again, pulling his entire length into his mouth and then sucking off. Again and again he closed his mouth around him, sucking his way to the base, till he could feel the buzzing of the vibrator against his lips, and then pulled off hard, the chill air cooling Kurt down before Sebastian attacked him again.

Kurt rolled his neck on his shoulders, dug his heels into the mattress, and scraped his nails over the comforter. Too much, it was too much, but he never wanted it to end. He couldn’t stop his hips from moving, from rolling over the little toy and feeling it hit him perfectly with every tilt. Begging Sebastian to stop blowing him was also not a possibility, if not for the fact that Kurt’s brain stopped working the moment Sebastian’s mouth touched his cock, then because he needed Sebastian’s mouth on him. He needed that connection.

Kurt ran his hands over everything within reach, craving more sensation, more touch. He scratched his nails over his own legs, traced the knuckles on Sebastian’s hands, walked his fingers up Sebastian’s arms then wound them in his hair.

“Oh, yes, gorgeous,” Sebastian moaned around the head of Kurt’s cock. “Touch me. Pull my hair. I know you’re close when you pull my hair.”

Kurt tugged Sebastian’s hair until he was sure it hurt, but he couldn’t help himself. He couldn’t help doing anything. He felt completely and delightfully out of control. He could try to stop the shivers that chased each other over his skin, but to no avail. He could fight to still his hips, the way they fucked the blue toy, the way they forced his cock into Sebastian’s mouth, but why, when he only wanted more? He felt guilty, taking so much pleasure and giving nothing in return, but he was too far gone to fix it now. He would have to find some way to pay Sebastian back when they were through…pay him back _big_ time.

Sebastian felt Kurt’s hips stutter, heard his loud moans turn into mewls, felt his fingers knot in his hair, grabbing at fistfuls as he tried to fuck Sebastian’s mouth harder. Sebastian dragged his fingertips down Kurt’s skin, digging them into the soft skin of his hips.

“Are you going to cum for me?” he muttered as he pulled off Kurt’s cock with an obscene pop. “I can feel it. I know you want to.”

A strangled whine, guttural, undignified, was Kurt’s only response. Sebastian smiled.

“I should just take you down my throat,” he continued, his own voice deep, gravelly, full of lust and fire. “Swallow you down whole until you beg me to stop. What do you think, Kurt?”

Kurt bit his lip. This was the most difficult part for Kurt - telling Sebastian what he wanted, letting Sebastian know how good he made him feel. Sebastian abandoned Kurt’s cock in favor of his lips, nibbling around his mouth, whispering taunts between feverish kisses.

“It would be a shame to stop now, Kurt.” Sebastian sucked Kurt’s lower lip into his mouth. “You’re so close. So…so…close…”

Kurt dropped his head to Sebastian’s shoulder with a drawn out whine. He reached for his cock, aching for release, but Sebastian grabbed his wrists and held them.

“Sebastian,” Kurt groaned in frustration. “Sebastian, _please_ …”

“Let me help you with that. Just tell me that’s what you want.”

Kurt nodded vehemently, hoping it would be enough.

“Tell me…” Sebastian taunted in a sing-song voice, his mouth mere inches from Kurt’s mouth, his tongue licking over the seam of his lips.

“Sebastian…Sebastian…” Kurt mumbled, struggling to free his hands.

“Just say it, Kurt,” Sebastian said, feeling spasms in Kurt’s shoulders. Kurt rolled his hips faster, but it didn’t help. The toy fell just a hair too short. With his body crying for Sebastian’s mouth around him, the toy alone wouldn’t make him cum.

“G-god, Sebastian,” Kurt stammered, the words rushing from his lips before he could realize what he was saying and let his own personal discomfort stop him. “Suck me off, Sebastian! Swallow my cock! Swallow it until I beg you to stop…”

Kurt kept muttering, stringing words together, spat out curses, promises he would find a way to keep, but Sebastian was already on him, swallowing around him, slowly to begin with, inch by torturous inch.

Sebastian kept Kurt’s arms locked to his sides. The feeling of being bound combined with the heat surrounding his cock was enough to make Kurt cum hard, uncontrollably, until his entire body shook with his orgasm, and Sebastian, true to his word, held Kurt through it, sucking him until Kurt arched his back and begged him to stop.

Sebastian thought he might never stop smiling.

Kurt collapsed back on the bed, fumbling for the toy, but Sebastian beat him to it, turning it off and pulling it out cautiously. He set it aside and lay beside his boyfriend, kissing him softly on the throat. Kurt shivered, a little from the intensity of cumming in Sebastian’s mouth, a little from the cold. Sebastian wrapped a blanket around him, tucking it underneath his sides.

“So, are you ever going to question my impulse purchases again?” Sebastian squeezed Kurt, tickling him to hear him laugh.

“Not if they’re all as good as that one,” Kurt said, curling as close to Sebastian’s warmth as he could. “I just feel bad.”

Sebastian looked at Kurt with a frown. “Why?”

Kurt gazed up at Sebastian with wide eyes and flushed cheeks. “Because, you didn’t cum…and we didn’t finish the froyo. It’s probably all melted by now.”

Sebastian winked. “I think we can fix both of those problems,” he said, rolling off the side of the bed and skedaddling the second his feet hit the floor.

“Where are you going?” Kurt called after his boyfriend sprinting out the door.

“To get the yogurt…and some towels. It’s about to get sticky in here.”

 

 

 

 


	18. Give Me One More Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for an anonymous prompt I’ll reveal toward the end. Warnings for mention of character death. Angst, au, future fic. Tony Award winner Kurt Hummel spending one last day with his husband Marine Corps Staff Sergeant Sebastian Smythe before his tour of duty begins.

Kurt whisked the eggs nervously, waiting in the kitchen with a huge lump in his throat. When he heard his husband start to descend the stairs, his heart skipped a beat, but he kept whisking, not ready yet to turn around and face him.

Sebastian ran a hand through his sleep-mussed hair, and eyed the wall clock. He scoffed as he made his way to the kitchen table on unsteady legs.

“So, either you let me sleep late, or you’re still not talking to me,” he mumbled, taking a seat at the table and resting his head on his arms. He watched Kurt move quickly between pots and pans on the stove, preparing what looked like a colossal meal. He groaned.

“Are you expecting guests for breakfast?”

“No,” Kurt said, cursing the slight waver in his voice. He prepared two plates, piling them high with eggs, waffles, biscuits and gravy…everything and anything he knew Sebastian liked. He took a deep breath and steeled himself. He turned to face his husband at the kitchen table and gasped. Sebastian sat straight up, looking around for whatever flaw caught Kurt’s eye. Did he leave his dirty boots on the Persian rug? Was there a spice out of place on the Lazy Susan? Sebastian swore Kurt had tears in his eyes when he walked to the table, setting the plates full of food down in front of him. Sebastian eyed the food suspiciously.

“So, you’re not still mad at me for taking one last tour of duty?”

“No. No, I’m not.” Kurt sniffled.

“But…what about your new musical?” Sebastian asked, tilting his head to look into Kurt’s stormy eyes. “And everything you said last night about…”

“I don’t care about that! About any of it!” Kurt rushed into Sebastian’s arms. Sebastian pushed his chair back to accept him, letting Kurt fall into his lap and drape his body over him. Kurt held Sebastian tighter than he ever remembered. “Just forget it? Please? I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for what I said, for every fight we ever had. For every time I couldn’t admit I was wrong. Please, just…”

"Kurt…gorgeous…what’s wrong?” Sebastian tried to pull Kurt’s gaze up to meet his, but Kurt buried his face into the crook of Sebastian’s neck and breathed in deep. “Kurt…you’re trembling, sweetheart.”

Kurt braved a look up from where he hid his face against Sebastian’s neck, finding emerald green eyes looking back at him, clouded with concern.

“I…I just…I’m scared, Sebastian,” Kurt admitted. “Scared you’ll go away to some far off country and never come back.”

Sebastian’s concerned face melted into a warm, relaxed and cocky grin.

“Oh, baby…” Sebastian purred. “We’ve been over this. I’m invincible, remember?”

“Yeah…” Kurt sniffled again, nodding sadly. “Yeah…you’re invincible.”

Sebastian wrapped his arms around Kurt’s shoulders until he stopped trembling.

“How about this?” Sebastian offered. “How about we go out for some retail therapy? Saks…Bloomingdale’s, you name it. We’ll see how close to the limit we can get on the new gold card. What do you say?”

Kurt’s head snapped up to look at the clock. It was almost noon. It was getting so late already.

“No,” Kurt said. “Not today.” He turned back to Sebastian’s surprised face and for the first time pressed tentative lips against Sebastian’s skin. Kurt felt a familiar spark of electricity travel across his skin. “Let’s stay home.” Kurt pecked a small path across Sebastian’s cheek, blazing a trail of progressively needier kisses towards his husband’s mouth. “Let’s go back to bed, and not get up again until the president himself pulls you out.”

Sebastian moaned at the double entendre.

“That sounds like an absolutely incredible idea.” Sebastian lifted Kurt off his lap, and carried him upstairs to get started on their perfect last day together.

***

Kurt woke up alone. The room around him, grey and dreary, revealed itself to him beneath the dim light. The center had worked hard to get the details right, but little things were amiss if he really took the time to look and notice them. The pale blue paint on the walls wasn’t exactly the same shade of Powdered Robin’s Egg that Sebastian had picked out for them when they first moved into the small house in San Diego. The knick knacks on the shelves were cheap imitations of the Hummels Sebastian had originally started buying for Kurt as a joke on their second date…the same ones Kurt smashed to pieces the day he found out.

Kurt stood slowly, fighting through a fog of his own depression as he started to get dressed, trying to push away the idea that all of this didn’t make things easier than before.

He walked down the stairs where his publicist and best friend Rachel Berry met him. She looked him over, then quietly fixed the buttons that were fastened wrong and turned out the collar that was partially tucked. Kurt’s blank eyes stayed glued to the imitation hardwood floor.

“Are you ready?” she asked, trying to gauge her friend’s state of mind.

He nodded in response.

They walked through the door of the replica house into a large, two level laboratory. A few men in stereotypical white coats approached, their expressions a mixture of carefully hidden eagerness and practiced compassion. But Rachel, anticipating their approach, threw herself into the fray.

“Mr. Hummel has nothing to say to you at this time, gentleman,” she said firmly. “I am sure he’ll be willing to meet with you in a week to answer all of your questions.”

“My apologies,” the lead lab coat said, “but it’s crucial for our research if…”

The doctor’s words stopped short at Rachel’s icy glare. The man stepped back in response.

“Of course,” he recanted. “Whenever Mr. Hummel is ready. We’ll wait.”

Rachel held Kurt’s elbow and led him through the maze of hallways until they finally reached to lobby. Kurt stopped at the glass doubled doors, his hands poised on the tension bar. He suddenly felt nauseous, swallowing a few times to fight back the urge to vomit.

“Whenever you’re ready,” Rachel whispered. “Just take your time.”

Kurt squeezed his eyes shut, taking one final, steadying breath. He leaned on the tension bar before he opened his eyes. He walked out the door and was greeted by the largest crowd of people he had ever seen in his life, even with his overwhelming success on Broadway. Reporters raced toward him, microphones at the ready to catch every word Kurt had to say. Security officers from the center held their arms outstretched to keep the reporters at bay, but that didn’t keep them from firing off question after question, barely giving him time to answer. Beyond the reporters stood flocks and flocks or protestors, holding large, handmade signs, aimed directly at him and the cameras.

“Here we are now with Tony Award winner Kurt Hummel as he leaves the Second Chance Regeneration Center,” he heard a reporter rattle off. “As the public already knows, Kurt Hummel’s husband, Marine Corps Staff Sergeant Sebastian Smythe, was killed by insurgents overseas over five years ago. Mr. Hummel is the first client of the center who has actually gotten the opportunity…”

Kurt tuned the reporter’s voice out, but another voice took its place.

“…enough of Staff Sergeant Smythe’s DNA was recovered in the remains of the explosion to allow Mr. Hummel one last day with a fully regenerated version of his husband. Had more DNA been recovered, days, weeks, even months might have been possible…”

Kurt heard Rachel placating reporters, leading him through the crowd along the way. He walked numbly to his car, ignoring the microphones, the cameras, and the hands that reached out to him, some people cheering their support, just as many screaming in revulsion.

“This is unnatural!” nameless, faceless people cried. “Let the dead rest in peace!”

Crueler taunts were tossed his way, but he barely registered them. He reached his limo, his chauffeur waiting to the last minute before opening the car door. Rachel left his side for a moment, giving one last reporter an opening. The young rookie weeded his way through the crowd before Kurt could slide into the safety of his limo and called out one final question.

“Was it worth it, Mr. Hummel?” The voice carried through the cries of the crowd and hit him like a sledge hammer.

Kurt turned around, his face pale and expressionless.

“What?” Kurt asked quietly.

The reporter, stunned at actually being addressed, took a moment to pull himself together.

“You paid $3.5 million to get one last day with your deceased husband,” the man said, trying to sound confident in the face of Kurt’s cold, grey eyes. “Was it worth it?”

Kurt let go of the breath he held, and in spite of himself, in spite of the pain, in spite of the agony of living the rest of his life alone, he smiled.

“Every penny.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The prompt for this was 'death'.


	19. Nocturnal Emissions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is another one-shot for the prompt ‘depraved’. AU where Sebastian goes to Dalton while Kurt and Blaine are still there, with Dalton being a boarding school. Warnings for underage, voyeurism, sleep walking, somnophilia (sort of), and infidelity. Not Klaine/Blaine friendly. Rated M for smut.

Kurt came to Sebastian’s room in the middle of the night, and every night, Sebastian taped him. Secretly, of course, using a digital webcam he kept hidden on his bookcase. It started shortly after Sebastian transferred to Dalton. Sebastian had no real interest in Kurt at first. He had his sights set on Kurt’s all-too smitten, shy schoolboy Blaine. The two were pretty much joined at the hip, and since Blaine seemed adorably oblivious to Sebastian’s blatant flirting, it became too much fun ruffling his royal highness’s feathers. But Sebastian wasn’t one to turn down a beautiful piece of ass, especially when it walked itself right into his room and climbed into his bed.

The first night, Sebastian assumed Kurt had stopped by to lay into him with one of his patented diva lectures about how he loathed Sebastian and the way Sebastian treated his boyfriend. He opened his bedroom door, startled to see Kurt, and slipped on his patented sarcastic smirk, waiting for the verbal blows. But Kurt brushed past him into his room like he owned it, climbed beneath Sebastian’s sheets, and went to sleep. Sebastian stood stunned in the doorway. He took a seat in his desk chair, trying to make sense of Kurt climbing into his bed in the middle on the night when just as suddenly as he showed up, Kurt climbed out of the bed and walked out. Sebastian followed a short way, watching the boy walk back down the hallway to his room.

The next night it happened again, the same exact way. A knock at Sebastian’s door, Kurt walking into his room as if Sebastian had invited him, and falling to sleep in Sebastian’s bed. Kurt would snooze for an hour, then get up and leave.

Sebastian never mentioned it, even over coffee in the commons when Kurt told him he smelled like craigslist. Sebastian knew that information was power, and for now he would play his cards really close to his chest and keep this little nugget of intel to himself.

After seven days of mysterious nocturnal visits, things suddenly changed. Sebastian found himself waiting up for Kurt, and would open the door once he heard Kurt’s footsteps pad down the hallway. He opened the door with a flourish.

“Welcome to casa de…”

Kurt’s lips silenced Sebastian’s snarky remark.

Kurt’s hands were everywhere – lifting up the hem of Sebastian’s white t-shirt, nails scratching along the skin of his stomach, snaking down the back of Sebastian’s pajama pants and palming over his ass. Sebastian tried to push Kurt away, but Kurt was stronger than Sebastian expected. Kurt practically dragged Sebastian over to the bed, sat down in front of him, and slipped Sebastian’s half-hard cock in his mouth.

“Nngh,” Sebastian moaned. He couldn’t help it. Kurt felt too good around him. “Kurt…w-what are you doing, Kurt?”

Kurt didn’t answer, his mouth completely occupied, sucking Sebastian’s length almost entirely down his throat.

“Kurt, you do remember that you… _God_ …that you hate me, right?”

Kurt didn’t acknowledge Sebastian’s question at all.

“Kurt,” Sebastian continued, holding on to Kurt’s shoulders for leverage, feeling his knees go weak, about to cum. “You have a boyfriend, Kurt.”

That was when the idea hit him. How he could finally swing stealing Blaine from Kurt. Not that he really wanted Blaine at this point he realized, but just because it would be too much fun splitting the Dalton power couple up.

Sebastian came down Kurt’s throat with a triumphant smile on his face, his plan coming together in his head as Kurt climbed beneath the blankets of the bed and fell asleep. An hour later, just like clockwork, Kurt got up and left.

Sebastian spent all of Saturday morning setting up the mini camera on his bookcase with an unobstructed view of his bed. That night, when Kurt came back, he barely waited to step into the room before he leapt into Sebastian’s arms, hands becoming even more bold, mouth sucking marks over Sebastian’s chest, hips moving, rutting roughly against him.

Sebastian stumbled backward as he tried to make his way to the bed, finally falling back onto the mattress and taking Kurt with him. Kurt’s eyes stayed closed, but he didn’t need to see to tear the clothes off Sebastian’s body. Kurt hovered over Sebastian, kissing down his body, his dainty tongue tracing patterns all along Sebastian’s skin.

Sebastian couldn’t help himself. He moaned into the dark, louder than he intended. He bristled for a second at the thought of an overly concerned teacher roaming the hall and barging in, thinking he was in pain. Or possibly another student. What about Blaine, half-asleep, wandering the halls in search of his boyfriend, lured down the hallway by the sound of Sebastian moaning and walking in to see him fucking his pristine boyfriend’s mouth. The thought of Blaine walking in on them made Sebastian’s blood boil. He felt himself grow harder in Kurt’s mouth, and he bucked his hips up, pounding harder and harder.

Kurt and Sebastian did everything but fuck on those nights in his room, and fourteen videos later, Sebastian found his moment. The Warbler council elected to give Blaine and Kurt a dual solo for regionals, and Sebastian decided he wanted Blaine’s part. He waited for Captain Clueless to leave the table for another cup of coffee, then closed in on Kurt.

“So, here’s the deal,” Sebastian whispered across the table to Kurt, “I want Blaine’s solo. You’re going to tell your pretty boyfriend to give it to me.”

Kurt’s blue eyes went wide with surprise. He chuckled, shaking his head with disbelief.

“And why would I do an insane thing like that?” Kurt asked, completely unperturbed. “You don’t have a quarter of his vocal range, and there is nothing you can say that would persuade me that you can sing the part better.”

“Oh,” Sebastian said, dropping his voice, his tone suddenly dark, “I think you’ll find that I can be very persuasive.”

Kurt furrowed his brow in confusion.

“And what is _that_ supposed to mean?”

“Let’s just say that I know something you don’t know.” Sebastian sat back in his chair, smug and satisfied that he had Kurt on the ropes. “Why don’t we discuss it in my room later…just you and me?”

“Discuss what?” Blaine asked, handing Kurt a cup and dropping back down into his chair.

“Just Mr. Parone’s calculus assignment,” Kurt covered quickly. “Sebastian stopped taking notes to stare at Jeff’s ass, and now he’s behind…uh…so to speak…”

Blaine laughed at Kurt’s unintended joke. He glanced up over his boyfriend’s head to the clock on the wall and gasped.

“Oh, crud, Kurt! We’re going to be late for Warbler practice.”

Kurt turned to look at the clock behind him.

“Shoot! You’re right.”

Sebastian watched Blaine and Kurt scramble for their things. He grabbed Kurt’s messenger bag before Kurt could get a hold of it, and slipped it over Kurt’s arm. Kurt stared at Sebastian curiously.

“Remember what I said, princess,” Sebastian said quietly. “Stop by anytime. My door’s always open.”

Kurt scoffed, turning away and taking Blaine’s outstretched hand.

“What was that all about?” Sebastian heard Blaine ask as the two walked away.

“Oh, you know Sebastian,” Kurt replied. “He thinks he’s God’s gift…you know, like that apple tree in the garden of Eden that turned everything to shit..”

Sebastian rolled his eyes, reaching down for his own bag when he spotted a folded piece of paper on the table in the space where Kurt had been sitting. He picked it up, wondering if it was a cutesy little love letter to Blaine from Kurt, or something equally as obnoxious.

It was a note addressed to Sebastian, written in Kurt’s flowery handwriting. Sebastian’s face went completely pale when he read it.

_‘So, when are we going to watch those movies of yours? K.H.’_


	20. In the Meantime...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt 'depraved'. Rated M for smut. Warnings for oral sex, alcohol use, prostitution, mention of drug use, infidelity-ish, mention of Blaine/Klaine.

Sebastian squeezed his eyes shut to better absorb the feeling of slick warmth that surrounded him. Even with his eyes closed, he saw Kurt perfectly – the image he kept in his head crystal clear even in his present state of inebriation. Kurt’s eyes, shifting from a calm, pacifying blue to a steely grey as the irises blew wide with want and lust; the twelve or so tiny freckles sprinkled across the sharp bridge of his nose; his delicate pink lips wrapping tight around his cock; Sebastian could see it all.

Sebastian pictured Kurt smiling at him, laughing at him almost cruelly when they fought, poking at Sebastian’s insecurities, rooting out all his carefully hidden fears and using them with practiced skill to cut him deep. And Sebastian had given Kurt an ultimatum…a fucking ultimatum. He should have known better. He should have known that if he gave Kurt an out he would take it.

Sebastian looked down at the scraggily head of brown head swallowing his dick and wondered what exactly Kurt was doing to Blaine right now. Was he on his knees in some filthy bar, ruining a pair of $300 jeans just to please Blaine?

Sebastian knocked back a shot of tequila to numb the urgent sensation coiling in his cock. The boy on his knees noticed the movement, heard the heavy gulp, and huffed in frustration.

“You know, if you keep pounding back shots, we’re going to be here all night.”

Sebastian chuckled darkly.

“Like you have anything better to do,” he slurred.

“You don’t know my life,” the boy grumbled. “And I told you before,” he continued with more conviction in his raspy voice, “my name’s not Kurt.”

Sebastian shoved a hand into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a wad of crisp bills held together with a platinum clip. He pulled one bill free with uncooperative fingers, crumpled it, and tossed it into the boy’s face.

“I’ll call you whatever the fuck I want to call you,” Sebastian muttered, rough hands grabbing a fistful of drab, mud-colored hair and pushing the boy’s face back into his crotch.

The boy sneered, but obediently sucked, reaching around blindly to grab up the violated hundred dollar bill. Sebastian considered the distasteful creature on his knees in front of him. He was about Sebastian’s age, and could probably pass for Kurt if he took better care of himself, or in contrast, if Kurt became a strung out, dead-behind-the-eyes junkie. Still, maybe Sebastian treated him less-compassionately than he should, but at the moment, he had no measure of pity for the boy. Sebastian had no idea what his name was. It had been mentioned once and promptly forgotten, and why not? This boy on his knees wasn’t really a person. He was a means to an end.

Sebastian closed his eyes and tried to conjure up an image of Kurt on his knees, his alabaster skin begging to be marked; his supple, pink lips stretching to accommodate Sebastian’s girth; the feeling of Kurt’s well-manicured nails raking raised marks up and down Sebastian’s legs. The image was so potent, so convincing, that he could almost hear Kurt’s strangely endearing judgmental sigh.

“Really, Sebastian? Is this what you’ve lowered yourself to? I’ve only been gone three days.”

Sebastian heard the words, the high-pitch voiced laced with sarcasm and veiled amusement at his expense, reminiscent of the cruel one that mocked him a few days back, but this one was softer, more forgiving, even considering the position Sebastian was currently in, with his cock shoved down the throat of a male prostitute.

Sebastian’s eyes snapped open to see mecca standing before him, hands on hips, dressed in head to toe Marc Jacobs, and smirking like a bitch.

Sebastian made no effort to move, afraid the shimmering mirage before him would dissolve into the air. Kurt sighed, dropping his overnight bag on the floor. He sidled up to Sebastian slowly, hips swaying, a vicious temptation to Sebastian’s weakened immune system. When Kurt reached the elephant in the room, the strung-out boy on his knees, Kurt rolled his eyes.

“Could you kindly remove my boyfriend’s dick from your mouth and leave?” Kurt groaned, delivering a sharp shove to the boy’s shoulder with the toe of his Doc Marten boot and sending him flying backward. Sebastian hissed as teeth scraped down the length of his cock as the surprised boy sprawled on the floor. The boy’s eyes went wide when he caught sight of Kurt hovering dangerously over him. Kurt’s eyes looked the boy over from spiked hair to worn-through shoes, taking in the soiled off-the-rack clothes he wore in between.

“Eww.” Kurt’s gaze swept the living room and landed on a blue bottle of Febreeze sitting on a nearby end table. He picked it up, and nonchalantly sprayed the boy’s clothes, nose scrunching in disgust and delight as the boy scurried to escape the mist of sweet smelling chemicals.

“God, that smell is never going to go away,” Kurt muttered as if he wasn’t assaulting a human being with disinfectant. “Now,” Kurt said, mildly pleased with himself, “take your money and get out. Go far away and forget where I live…or you’ll regret it.”

Kurt’s tone was threatening, his intent clear, and the boy didn’t squeak a single protest – not mentioning that Sebastian had driven him here, nearly sixteen miles away from his home; that walking home with $500 in his thread-bare pockets was basically begging for trouble. Whatever waited for him out on the street was nowhere near as terrifying as the sharply dressed, angelic-looking man with murder in his shining, gunmetal eyes. He scrambled off the carpet and out the door, bounding away like the fires of hell licked at his heels.

Kurt replaced the bottle and brushed off his hands, turning back to the statue of his boyfriend staring dumbly at him, rapidly softening cock hanging from the unzipped fly of his jeans, empty shot glass gripped tight in his hands. Kurt cocked an eyebrow as he took in the sight, and shook his head.

“You know, you were the one who pushed me away,” Kurt said, locking the apartment door. “You told me to go see him and figure out what I wanted. You have no one to blame but yourself.”

Sebastian swallowed hard in response. Kurt grabbed a pair of yellow latex kitchen gloves and slipped them on his hands. Confident that he was well-protected, Kurt tucked Sebastian’s cock back into his pants and did up his zipper. Then, with a scowl, he stripped the gloves off his hands and tossed them in the trash, spraying a fair amount of Lysol in the bag for good-measure.

Sebastian’s voice was late in coming, and choked when he finally found a way to speak

“S-so…so did you…”

“Yup,” Kurt said simply. “Within an inch of his life, too. And it’s safe to say he’s entirely out of my system.”

Sebastian nodded, stunned and unsure as to what Kurt had actually decided.

“So does that mean…”

“I’m back, Smythe,” Kurt said, throwing his arms wide.

Sebastian wanted to smile, but his skepticism wouldn’t let him.

Kurt caught the look of doubt, saw the way it settled into Sebastian’s emerald eyes and stayed, a fog that lingered to protect Sebastian from any potential pain. Kurt’s smile turned less sardonic and more genuine.

“Here’s what we’re going to do, Sebby…” Kurt put his hands on Sebastian’s shoulders and massaged firmly. “We’re going to scrub you with hot water and lye, run you down to the free clinic for a check-up because…” Kurt turned his head slightly to gesture after the ghost of the young boy, “…damn. And then we’ll discuss where we go from here.”

“So…you’re back to stay.”

Kurt risked a chaste kiss to Sebastian’s cheek.

“Back to stay, baby.”


	21. The First Time I Saw Your Face - Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From the prompt ‘scar’ came this monster story. Sebastian has visual agnosia - a disorder that affects how he perceives certain objects, including faces. Kurt has a horrible disfiguring scar. The two of them meet in college with some pretty interesting results. There will be several chapters to this story, posted in order.

Sebastian couldn’t see faces.

Growing up, Sebastian was an unusually hyper child. His parents couldn’t handle him. His nanny couldn’t handle him. He didn’t have many friends because he rarely stopped moving long enough to meet them. He was extremely intelligent, but couldn’t be bothered with trivial things like school and books. He couldn’t walk to school unchaperoned because on the days he did, he never made it there. An exceptionally large tree would call to him, and he would be compelled without reason to climb it. Or he would find a neighbor’s skateboard in the grass and skate away to the next town. One bizarre morning he was discovered at a neighbor’s house painting their fence.

It was on a day when he was running late for school and the nanny was sick and his mother and father were out of town that Sebastian took off down the street just to be distracted by his old foe – California black oak. A small fence constructed at the base of the tree and wound around with yellow caution tape couldn’t deter Sebastian. He leapt over them with barely any effort and shot up the trunk, scurrying straight to the top like a squirrel. He bounced among the high branches, swinging from one to the other, pretending to be a lemur in Madagascar, which is why the crew from the city maintenance department didn’t see him.

Men in cherry pickers started thinning out the branches, never noticing the rambunctious little boy until one of the workers spotted him balancing on the branch he had just finished trimming. Green eyes met brown for just a moment before the branch broke with a sickening snap and Sebastian fell to the ground, knocking out a few loose tree limbs along the way.

Eight broken bones.

A concussion.

A bunch of nasty looking contusions.

Close to fifty stitches.

His nanny never forgave herself.

His mother felt guilty for being grateful that her uncontrollable son’s massive injuries would force him to stay in one place for a while.

His father sued the city.

The doctors predicted that he would make a full recovery.

But Sebastian was an unusual boy.

Nothing about him was easy.

Something most children would have recovered from, even a horrendous accident like his, wouldn’t leave Sebastian without some kind of life-altering scar.

So when Sebastian opened his eyes and looked around his bed, he found he was completely and entirely alone, not because his family wasn’t standing at his bedside. He saw their bodies and their legs. But not a single one of them had a face.

The doctors assured his parents it would likely go away.

They gave his parents books. They put them in touch with support groups, specialists, and therapists.

His parents called acupuncturists, gurus, and monks.

No one had any solutions.

His parents pulled Sebastian out of school. They got him private tutors. He took his classes online.

He graduated with honors and when he turned eighteen he left his parents’ home against his family’s wishes and moved to New York City.

He never saw his parents again.

***

Kurt hated his face.

He wore turtlenecks and high collars.

He pulled the edges up to cover his right side.

He ate in the cafeteria by himself.

He spoke to no one.

In a room full of people, he tried to disappear.

Kurt was a meticulous child; a perfectionist really. His father never truly understood him. It all started when his mother died. After that, Kurt had an obsessive need for utter control in his life. Excessive neatness. A place for everything and everything in its place. Even ridiculous things needed to measure up to Kurt’s almost insane level of perfection. His father would wake up some mornings to not just a spotless house, but a thoroughly clean and organized garage. One Sunday morning, on the third anniversary of his mother’s death, Kurt’s father found him outside rearranging the plants growing in the garden. There Kurt was, dressed in head to toe plastic, two pairs of gardening gloves on his hands, and a ruler. He had started by measuring the distance from the house to the first tulip, and with mathematical precision, he readjusted all the tulips to match, color coordinated the gladiolas, and redistributed the gerberas by varying shades in order according to the color spectrum.

Kurt’s father sat and watched his son the entire afternoon, until Kurt reached a hydrangea and stopped in his tracks. The plant grew in an area of the garden with constantly changing levels of aluminum in the soil. Part of the plant grew blue and part of it pink. No matter how hard Kurt tried, he couldn’t figure out a way to divide the plant, and after an hour of trying, he broke down, sat in the dirt, and began to cry.

Kurt’s father held his son, and told him he would make everything all right. The next morning, the beautifully troublesome hydrangea had been adopted by a kindly neighbor down the street who knew what it was like to lose someone she loved.

Kurt’s obsession with order seemed to get worse from that day on, and his father was at a loss. He thought maybe his son was too isolated. Kurt had no real friends. A little girl from down the street had invited him over for a tea party once, but became frustrated with him when he took all of her collectibles down off of her shelves and categorized them by color and magical species.

His father planned a barbecue. He invited friends, neighbors, and family members from all over Ohio. Almost everyone came. Kids ran around the yard. Adults laughed and talked over potato salad and unhealthy fried foods. Kurt’s father broke out the old grill for the first time in years. Everything went off without a hitch. Kurt’s father even thought that Kurt looked happy.

A neighbor stacking the charcoal briquettes on the grill caught Kurt’s eye. The man stepped away for a moment, and Kurt noticed that the pyramid the tiny black blocks formed angled off obtusely on one side more than the others.

Kurt felt an overwhelming need to fix it.

He didn’t know the briquettes were already doused in fluid and lit.

Kurt reached for the grill, and brought the whole thing down on top of him.

The few neighbors who had decided not to attend the barbecue could hear Kurt’s screams from blocks away.

The entire right side of his face was scorched into one huge, angry scar.

Everything but his eye had been irreparably damaged.

He carried the burn his entire life.

Everyone in the relatively small town of Lima, Ohio, knew about Kurt’s accident. No one spoke about it. Kids didn’t tease him about it. Everyone understood, but Kurt still felt alone.

He hid his face.

He hid his life.

The day after graduation, he packed a bag and ran away.

Kurt was tired of hiding.

***

Running away to a place where very few people stood out seemed perfect to Kurt, but he was still terribly lonely. To a degree, the campus at NYU was a lot like Lima. No one really judged him for his scar, but no one made an effort to be friends with him either. He knew he was hard to look at. Sometimes, the people who tried hard not to stare at him were more obvious than those who stared openly, or the ones who gasped and looked away.

On the first day of _Intro to College Math_ , Kurt, the boy that people tried not to notice, found a boy who didn’t notice anyone. Kurt watched him from a distance as the young man took notes and diligently did his work. If there was a single incomparable human in the world, this man had to be it. Everything from his modernly styled hair to his sea green eyes, his flawless skin and his impeccable fashion sense, screamed perfection…and unavailable.

The thing that fascinated Kurt the most was that regardless of the loads of attention that people heaped on him – girls flirted with him, metrosexual men practically begged to be his friend – he ignored them all. Even the professor calling out his name didn’t seem to attract his attention.

 _Sebastian_.

Kurt sat three rows back and to the left of unrivaled beauty, and his name was Sebastian.

He wrote it on his left arm so he would never forget it.

“Okay, now you’re just making shit up,” a girl behind Kurt scolded her friend. “Can’t see faces? That’s not even a thing. You just don’t want me to ask him out before you get the chance. FYI – it’s not going to work. I’m totally getting up on that as soon as possible.”

“Whatevs,” her friend retorted. “It is _so_ a thing. I heard Professor Evans talking about it. That’s why he doesn’t talk to anyone…and P.S. He’s mine, thank you very much.”

Their conversation peeked Kurt’s curiosity, and even though he wouldn’t normally give either girl the time of day, he turned quickly and confronted them.

“What are you talking about?” he asked, sounding more assertive than usual under the circumstances. Both girls jumped back a bit.

“Ugh,” the first girl commented. “Rude much?”

A third girl sitting beside them closed her book with a frustrated sigh.

“It’s called visual agnosia,” she clarified without sparing them a glance. “It’s not that he can’t _see_ faces. He knows what a face is, it’s just his mind doesn’t recognize them anymore, so it replaces them with something else. From what I hear, everyone just looks kind of like a big blur on legs to him.”

The girl started to gather up her belongings and shove them in her bag.

“But…but what could cause that?” Kurt asked, suddenly excited by the prospect of a gorgeous man who couldn’t see his face, wouldn’t see how damaged he was.

Maybe they could be friends.

“Uh…I don’t know,” the girl said, zippering up her bag. “Maybe an accident? A blow to the head or something.” The girl looked up at Kurt with an unexpectedly warm smile. “Maybe you should ask him.” The girl winked at Kurt, shouldered her bag, and headed for the door.

Kurt absentmindedly got up and followed her. She seemed to know something he didn’t. Or was that just wishful thinking on his part? Either way, if Sebastian couldn’t see Kurt’s horrible scar, then it wouldn’t hurt to talk to him, maybe ask him out for coffee. Maybe he could make up an excuse, ask Sebastian for help with the math assignment.

_Shit!_

Kurt was almost through the classroom door when he realized he had left his book and the rest of his belongings on his desk.

Kurt turned on his heel, muttering to himself. He ducked his head to avoid any possible stares from his classmates. A herd of gabby girls walked into him head on, and Kurt landed on his tailbone on the hard, linoleum floor.

A hand grabbed his arm.

“Hey! Are you alright?” Kurt heard a velvety smooth voice ask. Then the voice gasped. Kurt was sure some well-meaning jock had reached down to help him and caught sight of his face.

But the reality was worse…much worse.

Sebastian, his green eyes even more intense and incredible from close up, had grabbed hold of Kurt’s left wrist. The long sleeve of Kurt’s hoodie had pushed up to his elbow. Sebastian stood frozen, staring at his own name.

Kurt’s terrified eyes watched Sebastian’s face closely, waiting for a reaction.

Sebastian smiled, his all-too tempting lips twitching up into a crookedly adorable grin.

“So, is that _my_ name on your arm? Or is your name Sebastian, too?”

“Uh…” Kurt hadn’t expected this. This gorgeous guy wasn’t cringing in fear, wasn’t backing away, wasn’t ignoring him uncomfortably as if he didn’t exist. In fact, Kurt wasn’t too certain, but Sebastian might have just flirted with him. Kurt felt his face glow red. The most handsome man Kurt had ever seen was flirting with him.

To be fair, Sebastian hadn’t really caught sight of his face yet.

Kurt swallowed hard. He couldn’t think of anything to say. He simply waited for the shoe to drop.

Sebastian’s eyes found his face.

Kurt went rigid, but then breathed a sigh of relief remembering that Sebastian wouldn’t react like everyone else, because he wouldn’t see his face. He would only see a blur. For once, Kurt would be just another face in the crowd.

Sebastian didn’t react like anyone else ever had.

His eyes went wide. His grip around Kurt’s arm tightened. He stared for a moment, a strange, unreadable expression on his face.

Then Sebastian choked out a laugh, dropping to his knees in front of Kurt, who still lay sprawled on his ass on the floor.

“I can see you,” Sebastian whispered. Kurt would have thought the man was poking fun at him if not for the genuine sound of awe in his voice and the tears shimmering in his eyes. “I can see you,” he repeated softly. He reached his free hand out to touch Kurt’s face. Kurt backed away as far as he could to avoid Sebastian’s fingers, but not far enough to pull his wrist free of Sebastian’s grip.

“Is everything alright, Sebastian? Kurt?” Professor Evans asked from behind them. Kurt looked up and saw the professor staring down at them, along with almost every other student from their math class, and a few others who lingered in the hall.

“Kurt,” Sebastian parroted. The sound of his name wrapped around that velvety voice brought Kurt’s attention back to Sebastian’s astonished green eyes. “Kurt,” he said again. Sebastian slowly started to come to the realization that they were both sitting on the floor in the doorway of their classroom, with a group of their peers staring at them strangely. He stood, pulling Kurt to his feet, unwilling to take his eyes off of Kurt’s stunned face.

“Would you like to go have coffee with me, Kurt?” Sebastian asked. “I would like to get to know you…if you have the time.”

This was all too weird, even for Kurt. He had no idea what was going on. But was he really going to let that get in the way of him having coffee with this stunning man?

“I would love to,” Kurt answered breathlessly. “I just need to…to get my books.”

Sebastian followed behind Kurt while he got his things. It should have unnerved Kurt, the way Sebastian looked at him. Kurt had been stared at most of his life, but not like this. Not like he was someone to be admired.

Not like he was beautiful.

He gathered all of his things into his bag and shrugged it onto his shoulder, but Sebastian intercepted it, and slung it over his shoulder instead.

“This way you can’t run away from me,” Sebastian whispered with a satisfied smirk on his face. He took  Kurt by the hand and led him from the classroom, several dozen pairs of eyes and gaping mouths following them as they walked away.

 


	22. The First Time I Saw Your Face - Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sebastian has visual agnosia - a disorder that affects how he perceives certain objects, including faces. Kurt has a horrible disfiguring scar. The two of them meet in college with some pretty interesting results.

Kurt sipped his coffee, shrinking slightly beneath the weight of Sebastian’s eyes as they followed Kurt’s every move. Sebastian seemed absolutely fascinated by Kurt. He mimicked every gesture. Sebastian licked his lips when Kurt did, swallowed when Kurt swallowed, tilted his head at the same time. It was almost like looking into a mirror.

“So, was there something that you wanted to know…about me?” Kurt asked. He felt exposed, like a specimen in a glass jar…something novel and interesting for Sebastian to look at.

“Yes. Yes, I do, as a matter of fact,” Sebastian replied, managing to sound both distant and interested at the same time. “Tell me everything about yourself.”

Kurt’s eyes bugged slightly. He looked down at his watch and sighed.

“Everything?” Kurt asked. “Seriously?”

“Yes, seriously.” Sebastian smiled. Kurt noticed Sebastian’s hands working on the surface of the table - flexing, fidgeting, crawling slightly as if Sebastian wanted to take Kurt’s hand, but then returning to their place, fingers thrumming on the Formica surface.

“Well…” Kurt spun his coffee cup in his hands. He focused on the plastic lid, trying to think of something interesting to say. He felt pressured to live up to some sort of magical, super-human status. “I’m from Ohio…”

Three words spoken and Sebastian’s eyes practically glowed, his hand slapping down on the table unexpectedly.

“So am I!” he said. “Westerville. You?”

“Lima.” Kurt chuckled, trying hard to hold back the small tremor of excitement that shot through him. “I lived there my entire life with my dad…my mom died when I was eight…”

Sebastian’s face softened. This time his hand found Kurt’s and held it gently.

“I’m so sorry,” he said.

Kurt flinched involuntarily at the unsolicited contact.

“I’m sorry,” Sebastian said, pulling his hand back slowly. “Do I make you nervous?”

“More than you can possibly comprehend,” Kurt replied, with only slight sarcasm.

Sebastian smirked.

“Why is that?” Sebastian asked earnestly, finally taking a sip of his neglected coffee.

“Well, if you must know,” Kurt started, feeling unexpectedly vulnerable, “it’s the way you stare at me.”

Sebastian looked up from his coffee with a flirty smile.

“I imagine people stare at you all the time.”

Kurt scowled, the truth of Sebastian’s comment driving every other thought out of his head. His suspicions about Sebastian’s motives turned to anger - utterly irrational anger.

“What? Is that some kind of joke?” Kurt barked.

“Wh-what are you talking about?” Sebastian’s smile slipped as confusion took over.

“Is this some really elaborate prank?” Kurt couldn’t help the sound of hurt in his voice. He only had himself to blame. He should have known better. Can’t see faces? What the fuck is that!? That girl in class could have been in on it. That would explain her strange, impish grin.

“Do people stare at me?” Kurt muttered, taking out his wallet and dropping a couple of wrinkled dollars on the table to pay for his coffee. “Only all the time, you dumb fuck, but you know that, don’t you?”

“Kurt?” Sebastian reached out for Kurt’s hand, but Kurt pulled it away. “Kurt, I don’t know…do people stare at you? Is there something I’m missing?”

“I don’t think you _do_ miss it!” Kurt started yelling. “I think you see it crystal clear.”

Kurt stood and bolted from the coffee shop. Sebastian grabbed his bag and followed, getting more and more flustered with each step.

“Kurt…I have no idea…would you please wait!”

Kurt stopped. He didn’t know why. He didn’t have a reason to. He didn’t owe this man anything, but Kurt still held on to the hope that everything Sebastian claimed was true, that he couldn’t see Kurt’s face and his awful scar, and that maybe, maybe he really wanted to get to know Kurt.

“Could you please tell me what the hell is going on?” Sebastian pleaded, “Because believe it or not, I don’t have a clue.”

Kurt took a deep breath, filling his lungs to overflowing with the cool, fall air. He got as close to Sebastian as he dared, until they were nearly touching noses. Kurt squinted into Sebastian’s eyes, which stared back at him bewildered. Sebastian didn’t flinch at Kurt’s closeness. He didn’t seem disgusted by the fact that Kurt’s face came so close to touching his.

Could it all be true, or was Sebastian just one hell of an actor?

Kurt still wasn’t sure.

“What do you see?” Kurt asked.

“What?” Sebastian didn’t move away from Kurt, even as Kurt inched even closer.

“When you look at my face…what do you see?”

Sebastian breathed a sigh of relief, his entire face relaxing back into that charming, smooth and easy smile that had started to tie Kurt’s stomach into tiny knots.

“I see your smile…” he said softly, holding Kurt’s gaze captive with his own as he spoke, “…and I see your beautiful blue eyes…I see your perfect, porcelain skin…”

Kurt recoiled at the mention of his skin.

“Perfect?” Kurt whispered in disbelief. “Perfect?” Kurt didn’t know if he wanted to cry or scream. “Why are you being so cruel? You don’t even know me.”

Sebastian threw his hands up in frustration.

“I don’t understand!” he exclaimed. “I wish you would just tell me what you’re talking about, because I promise you I don’t know!”

Kurt grabbed one of Sebastian’s hands, placing just his fingertips to the right side of his face. Sebastian traced down the embedded marks and ridges on Kurt’s skin gently. The feeling of Sebastian’s fingers touching his face tenderly filled Kurt with a strange, unfamiliar feeling. His heart sped in his chest, his eyes grew wide. He felt fire rush through his blood. He held his breath, praying Sebastian didn’t notice.

Kurt watched Sebastian’s face for any change, any sign of revulsion or disgust. Sebastian’s brow furrowed, his eyes searching Kurt’s face, trying to make sense of what he felt in contrast to what he saw. Kurt felt his righteous indignation start to dissolve. Suddenly Kurt wanted those fingertips all over his body. He wanted them creeping beneath his shirt, exploring over his skin. He never wanted anyone’s touch so much. Kurt backed away. Sebastian’s hand hovered in the air for a moment.

“What…what was that?” Sebastian asked.

“It’s a scar. A burn. I got it when I was little. It destroyed the right side of my face.”

“Oh,” Sebastian said, his confused eyes soft and sympathetic. “I’m so sorry.”

Kurt nodded, waiting for the inevitable. Now Sebastian knew the truth. He could let Kurt down easy. He would realize his mistake, walk away, and go on with the rest of his life. Kurt could go home alone and file this moment away so he could look back on it and remember the feeling of Sebastian’s fingers on his skin, and that look of absolute wonder in Sebastian’s perfect green eyes when he first looked at Kurt’s face.

But Sebastian didn’t say a word, and he didn’t turn to leave. He simply waited for Kurt to say something. If Sebastian’s staring was unnerving, his silence was almost unbearable. Kurt looked left and right, needing a way out.

“What is it that you want, Sebastian?” Kurt sounded exasperated. He wanted to run. Run away from this God-forsaken coffee shop, and the strangers who started to stare their way.

He wanted to run away from the possibility of getting his heart broken.

“Honestly, I want to see you again.”

Kurt laughed at the irony.

Sebastian sighed with a tired chuckle of his own.

“Ok, my staring bothers you. I accept that. I’ll stop.” Sebastian ran a hand through his hair while he tried to think of a solution.

“How about this,” he suggested finally, “I’ll close my eyes for a full minute, and you get to decide how you want to move forward. We can shake hands and say good-bye as friends, or maybe, just maybe, you can be open-minded and give me a chance.”

Kurt didn’t answer. He couldn’t convince his mouth to make words. Was this man for real? Did he really want to ask Kurt out again…after all of this?

Sebastian closed his eyes.

Kurt looked at Sebastian’s face, eyes closed, lips relaxed into a sly grin, waiting for Kurt to make his move.

Kurt imagined for a second that Sebastian maybe even wanted Kurt to kiss him.

Sebastian waited, counting quietly in his head, hoping for anything…a touch…a whisper…a kiss? Would Kurt be that bold? But the longer he waited, the more he began to think that Kurt might not even like him.

A breath ghosted over Sebastian’s ear like the light touch of a feather gliding over his skin.

“I don’t know what you’re waiting for, gorgeous,” a silky voice said, “but your hideous friend just split.”

Sebastian’s eyes snapped open. His eyes swept over the sidewalk, the chairs filled with faceless customers sitting at tables, sipping their drinks. He looked up and down the street in vain. Kurt had run off.

“Thanks,” he said in a monotone to the hopeful barista, “and fuck you very much.”

***

“So, you just left him there?” the fiery blonde therapist asked with a scowl on her face. “In the doorway to Starbucks, practically begging you to kiss him?”

Kurt rolled his eyes. He stood from the straight backed arm chair and started pacing the small office.

“Yes, alright, Jane!” Kurt groaned, feeling the full weight of his guilt barreling through him. “I left him there. I left him standing there with his eyes closed, and yes, I think he wanted me to kiss him. But…”

“But, what?” Jane propped her feet up on her desk. Kurt cringed at the sight of her thirty dollar sensible shoes scuffing the rich mahogany desk top. “Be prepared, sweet cheeks. He might not want to speak to you ever again.”

Kurt sighed, dropping back down into the stiff chair. That’s what he was afraid of. He hadn’t really thought about it when he took off, but he had his reasons, and they were good reasons…weren’t they?

“I just…I don’t…” Kurt cradled his head in his hands. “Why me?”

“Well, that’s an easy question to answer, isn’t it?”

“And that’s the problem!: Kurt exclaimed. “I don’t want him to like me just because he can see me. I mean, it’s fucked up that he has this crazy, rare disorder and all, but I don’t think I’m strong enough to be his anchor…and I don’t want to be a consolation prize.”

Jane fixed Kurt with her piercing sky blue eyes.

“But, you didn’t even give him a chance, did you?” Jane accused. “You’re kind of a judgmental prick, do you know that?”

Kurt’s jaw dropped.

“Excuse me?” he said defensively. “You know, I don’t think I’m paying you to insult me.”

“No, you’re paying me so I can help you, and part of that is calling you out on your bullshit when I smell It and, whoa, if you aren’t stinking up this office like a manure factory.”

Kurt felt defeated. Jane was crude, but she was also right.

“Well, it doesn’t matter now, seeing as he’ll probably never speak to me again.” Kurt picked at a stray string on the arm of the chair. “I don’t even know why he _can_ see me,” Kurt mumbled.

“There I might be able to help you,” Jane said. She leaned her chair back dangerously, pulling a stack of papers from her printer and passing them to Kurt. “When you called, I emailed a colleague of mine. A neurologist. He got in contact with a guy who deals in obscure neurological disorders, and emailed me all this crap.”

Kurt took the papers and flipped through them. He counted almost thirty pages filled with words like visual input, mental representation, recognition memory, and a few others he felt he might be able to discern, but wedged between those were other words like positron emission topography, N-acetyl-aspartate depletion, and impaired semantic fluency that he was sure would give him a headache after only five minutes. Kurt shook his head in disbelief as he tried to digest a few of these sentences and failed.

“Uh…can I get the Cliffs Notes version?”

“No,” Jane said sternly. “Partially because your penance for being an ass is to read that stack from top to bottom.”

Kurt raised an eyebrow, peeking up at Jane from over the papers.

“And what’s the other part?”

“The other part is I couldn’t even begin to tell you what any of that means, but…”

Jane stood from her desk and walked over to where Kurt sat, flipping through the daunting pages with a look of exasperation on his face. She thumbed past a few pages until she reached a section that with a highlighted passage. She jabbed at the page a few times with her finger.

“This might answer your question as to why he can see you.”

Kurt scanned the few sentences eagerly, but quickly became overwhelmed, throttling the pages in frustration.

“Basically,” Jane explained, “it says that he can see your face because of your scar, but he’s telling the truth. He can’t see your scar.”

“What?” The depths of Kurt’s confusion became astronomical.

“His brain works on perception,” Jane continued. “He’s seen a face before, but because of whatever, he no longer perceives them. More than likely, he’s never seen a scar like yours before, so his mind removes it and replaces it with what’s familiar…your face.”

“So, if he saw someone else with a scar…or a gigantic birthmark or something…”

“It might work the same way. Yes.” Jane returned to her seat, propping her feet back up on her desk.

“So, I was right.” Kurt shook his head. “I’m not special.”

Jane sighed.

“God, are you infuriating!” she said. “It has nothing to do with that. Realistically, it has very little to do with you. For once in your sad, tragic little life, someone else has it slightly worse.”

“Really?” Kurt scoffed. “How? He’s gorgeous, smart, he could have anyone he wanted…”

“Yeah, except he can’t, can he? He’s lonely. He wanted a friend. After all these years, he finally found someone he could actually see and when he reached out to that person, they left him in a coffee shop without even a good-bye.”

Kurt dropped his head in shame. He was so infuriated by the idea that Sebastian might be playing him, might have some cruel angle or intention, that he never considered that Sebastian might just be a lonely guy looking for a friend.

He was so busy being a victim, he didn’t realize he was also a self-centered ass.

“What do I do?” Kurt asked.

Jane pointed at the pages in Kurt’s hands.

“You read those, and on the off chance that Captain Perfect actually does talk to you, you apologize, and you offer to buy him a coffee.”

“And if he yells at me?” Kurt met Jane’s eyes.

“You let him,” she said, “because you deserve it. Now get the hell out of my office, Skinny Jeans. Your hour’s up.”

Jane waved Kurt away with one dismissive, manicured hand.

***

If Sebastian felt Kurt staring at him, he didn’t let on. He focused on the blackboard and did his work quickly, hoping to pack up his things and be out the door the moment class ended.

Kurt barely paid attention to anything Professor Evans said. He caught something about derivatives, and maybe something about integers. Frankly he could care less. He had passed Calculus BC before graduating high school. He was fairly sure missing out on the professor’s riveting discussion about positive and negative numbers wouldn’t kill his grade point average. He didn’t even bother to take his book out of his bag. He wanted to be able to catch Sebastian before he had the chance to give him the slip.

Kurt felt like an 80s high school angst movie cliché, sitting on the edge of his seat, watching the second hand tick slowly around the face of the clock on the wall, ready to pounce when the bell rang. When the time came, Kurt’s graceful and carefully planned approach failed spectacularly when his foot tangled in the straps of his backpack, and he crashed onto the ground bringing his desk down with him. Everyone stopped and stared. Professor Evans gaped at him from his spot in front of the blackboard. The girls in the desks behind him chittered like squirrels, giggling behind their hands and shaking their heads. Kurt didn’t try to get up. He hoped that maybe Sebastian had seen this as his golden opportunity and left.

A strong hand grabbed Kurt’s arm and pulled him to his feet.

“Yeah, thanks,” Kurt muttered, not even turning to face whoever helped him.

“Yeah, well, I’m beginning to think being knocked on your ass is going to be a daily thing with you.” Sebastian turned the desk over and rescued Kurt’s traitorous backpack.

Kurt went cold. He hadn’t seen this coming. He had practiced what he would say to Sebastian in his head over and over, and never once did that conversation start with Sebastian picking his sorry ass up off the floor.

Kurt decided to just go for it.

“Look,” Kurt said, “about the other day…”

“Forget it,” Sebastian interrupted, thrusting the backpack into Kurt’s arms. “I think you made yourself pretty clear already. No harm, no foul.”

Sebastian shifted uncomfortably on his feet, turning to leave. Kurt grasped at straws, trying to think of anything that would keep Sebastian from walking away.

_I’m sorry._

_I’m an idiot._

_I didn’t mean to run off. It was an accident._

“So…do you have apperceptive or associative visual agnosia?” Kurt blurted out.

Sebastian stopped short.

_Shit!_

“I’m sorry,” Kurt followed up quickly. “Is that a personal question? I didn’t mean…”

Sebastian turned and looked back at Kurt with a cryptic expression in his green eyes.

“Where did you…”

“My therapist,” Kurt divulged. “She gave me some information…”

Kurt dug through his backpack, searching for the well-read and underlined sheets of paper cluttering his bag, trying to hide from Sebastian’s hard-to-interpret look of scrutiny. Kurt pulled out a few of the pages from the mass and Sebastian took them, scanning the words and noting the notes scribbled into the margins.

“So, you know.” Sebastian shrugged, handing the pages back to Kurt. “Now we’re even.”

Kurt zippered up his bag quickly, shooting out a hand to grab Sebastian’s shoulder as he turned to walk away.

“You know, to be fair, you did come on a little strong,” Kurt said, trying to defend himself. Sebastian smirked, shaking his head, but the comment made him pause.

“Please,” Kurt said, holding Sebastian’s shoulder. “Please, can’t we just…start over?”

Sebastian glared at Kurt.

“Well, why don’t you close your eyes for a minute, and we’ll see what happens.”

Kurt felt his heart twist in his chest at the cold, hurt look in Sebastian’s eyes. Kurt sighed and shut his eyes, waiting, pretty sure that Sebastian would just walk off and leave him.

Sebastian had every right.

He almost did.

He barely took a step before he stopped. He looked at Kurt, eyes closed, waiting, the same way Sebastian waited for Kurt.

“I…I can’t do that to you,” Sebastian said.

Kurt opened his eyes slowly. Sebastian looked down at his shoes, scuffing the linoleum with his foot.

“I can’t just leave you here.”

“Why not?” Kurt asked.

Sebastian looked back up at Kurt’s face.

“Because I wasn’t lying,” Sebastian said matter-of-factly. “I was telling the truth when I said I wanted to get to know you. I want to know everything about you. And not just because…” Sebastian raised a hand and unconsciously gestured to Kurt’s face, “…because I can see you. It’s because…I have a feeling that we have a lot in common.”

“Yeah,” Kurt said, dropping his own eyes to his white Doc Marten boots. “Like what?”

Sebastian moved closer, ducking his head to catch Kurt’s gaze.

“Like maybe we can both use a friend.”

Kurt was too ashamed to look at Sebastian, but Sebastian wouldn’t let him look away.

“I have a place off campus,” Sebastian offered. “Maybe you can come over and I can make us dinner?”

Kurt swallowed hard, letting his mind wander, entertaining the idea that maybe Sebastian had more than just dinner in mind, as ridiculous a thought as that may be.

“When?” Kurt asked, hoping his voice didn’t sound as small and pathetic as he thought it did.

“What are you doing right now?”

Kurt smiled.

“Nothing important,” he said.

Sebastian turned half-way, preparing to walk out of the classroom with Kurt following, but at the last moment he offered Kurt his hand. Kurt took it, suppressing a ridiculous giggle as he walked with Sebastian out the door.

 


	23. The First Time I Saw Your Face - Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sebastian has visual agnosia - a disorder that affects how he perceives certain objects, including faces. Kurt has a horrible disfiguring scar. The two of them meet in college with some pretty interesting results.

Kurt turned in a slow circle and whistled low, taking in every inch of Sebastian’s stylish studio apartment.

“When you said you had a place off-campus, I thought for sure you meant one of the little shoeboxes the rest of us got shoved into. But this…”

Kurt whistled again.

Sebastian smiled, taking Kurt’s book bag and putting it beside his on the floor near the door.

“Well, money has its perks,” Sebastian admitted, “and I have plenty of it. Thank you grandma and grandpa.” Sebastian gazed up at the ceiling and sent a small kiss skyward.

“Ah, trust fund baby,” Kurt said, walking over to the plush sofa and dropping down into the cushion. The oversize piece of furniture nearly swallowed him whole, not that he minded. This caramel-colored sofa, with its high-back and armrests, was even more comfortable than his own bed. He closed his eyes and sighed, the sound of Sebastian’s unguarded chuckle making him smile.

“Comfy?” Sebastian teased, knocking into one of Kurt’s knees with his own.

“Shhh,” Kurt teased back. “I’m asleep.”

Sebastian smiled and shook his head, stealing a moment to examine Kurt from his head of perfectly-styled walnut colored hand, over his retro Tommy Hilfiger tee and artfully torn Abercrombie jeans, down to his Doc Marten boots, only tied half way. Sebastian followed the line of Kurt’s clothes back up his body, eyes riding the gentle curves of his jeans where they clung to his muscle, the rise and fall of his stomach beneath his shirt as he breathed, reaching his face – that beautiful, confusing, complicated face – in time to see one eyelid pop open when Sebastian took too long and the room stayed too quiet.

Sebastian recovered quickly, clearing his throat and turning away, occupying himself by quickly kicking off his checkered Vans, but Kurt smiled nonetheless.

“You live in off-campus housing, I take it?” Sebastian took a seat beside Kurt, turning toward him, knees barely touching.

“Yup,” Kurt replied, still watching Sebastian through only one open eye. “I share a two-bedroom with a performance artist, and luckily for me, he’s not all too particular.”

“Oh—oh.” Sebastian bobbed his head in a nod, disappointment evident in his voice so much so that Kurt couldn’t bear to tease him.

“Yeah, but he spends most of his time at his girlfriend’s sorority house anyway, so I get the place mostly to myself.”

Sebastian fought the smile that started to tense his cheeks, trying his best to look nonplussed by Kurt’s remark, knowing how much he had just revealed his hand.

“Well, why don’t I make us something to eat?” Sebastian suggested, rising from the couch.

“Ooo, let me help you,” Kurt offered, rocking back and forth in a failed effort to dislodge himself from the couch cushions. Sebastian stood back a step and watched, reluctant to offer any assistance as payback for Kurt poking fun at him. Kurt slid forward finally, almost dropping to his knees on the floor in an attempt to get to his feet. Kurt stood straight, crossing his arms over his chest, and glaring at Sebastian with a hint of humor in his eyes.

“Nice,” Kurt accused. “Very nice.”

Kurt marveled at Sebastian’s state-of-the-art kitchen, quietly turning green as he chopped vegetables at the island and watched Sebastian cook. Sebastian looked comfortable, almost in his element, and Kurt, who didn’t impress easily, found that he was. He bit his lip when Sebastian flipped vegetables in the sautee pan over the fire with ease, fiddled uncomfortably in his seat when Sebastian cracked two eggs at a time perfectly in one hand, and almost moaned out loud at the way Sebastian massaged a dry rub into a roast.

And Sebastian, who might have been putting on a little bit of a show, preened at the attention he knew he attracted, realizing Kurt was watching when he heard the pounding of the knife against the cutting board slow and then come to a stop.

“So, how are the veggies coming?” Sebastian asked, slowly slipping the roast in the oven.

“Oh…what?” Kurt sat rim-rod straight, dropping the knife that dangled from his fingers onto the mutilated carrot lying on the cutting board. “Uh..l…all done.”

Sebastian grabbed a large salad bowl and started gathering up the various chopped greens and roots, tossing them together expertly with a vinaigrette he had mixed earlier from scratch. Kurt would have stopped staring if that were humanly possible, but at this point, he couldn’t tear his eyes away if he tried. Flattered and amused, Sebastian picked the bowl up off the counter and headed toward the dining room.

“Why don’t we get started,” he said, smoothly leading Kurt out to the table without turning to see if he was following.

Kurt never realized he could have romantic feelings for a rump roast until he tasted the meal Sebastian had made. Kurt bit his lip, trying hard to keep from moaning after every single bite. After every moan, Sebastian’s heart would stutter, his entire body reacting to the sound, until he had to cross his legs tight at the ankles to keep from getting up and moving to the seat beside Kurt. Sebastian needed a distraction from the sinful way Kurt’s mouth moved around the piece of meat as he chewed, the way he closed his eyes to appreciate every bite, and that delicious moan.

“Tell me about your dad,” Sebastian said, feeling that discussions about a parental figure might be just the thing to cool him off.

Kurt sighed wistfully, and Sebastian was afraid that maybe he chose the wrong distraction.

“He’s my rock,” Kurt replied simply. “I love him. I miss him. He blamed himself way too much for this…” Kurt gestured down the side of his face. “But he was overprotective, and so sad all the time. It might sound selfish, but I just needed to get away from that.”

“Yeah, that sounds incredibly selfish,” Sebastian agreed. Kurt turned hard eyes on him, but Sebastian continued on. “But, you’re supposed to be selfish, Kurt. This is your life, and you have to start living it. He’s your dad. He’ll understand.”

Kurt looked down at his meal and nodded, toying at another tempting bite with the tines of his fork.

“What about your family?” Kurt asked, looking up to meet Sebastian’s eyes. “What are they like?”

Sebastian chewed while he thought, taking a moment to wipe his mouth with a napkin before answering.

“Distant,” he said. “I was a very hyper child, and my parents couldn’t really handle me. Then after the accident, they shut me away so I’d never get hurt again.”

“So, you weren’t born like this?”

“Nope.” Sebastian’s lips twitched into a sad half-smile. “I fell out of a tree…knocked into every branch on the way down, ended up unconscious for days. When I woke up, I couldn’t see my mom and dad’s face. The doctor just thought it was trauma from the fall, and that someday, when my brain had fully healed and the swelling was gone, everything would go back to normal. But it never did.”

“I’m sorry.” Kurt wished he could think of something smarter, more compassionate or relevant to say, but nothing came to mind, and Kurt didn’t want to stay quiet in the face of such a tragic story.

Sebastian shrugged.

“It is what it is.”

“Well, is there a chance, maybe? You know, that your vision will return?” Kurt realized he was grasping at straws, probably even the same straws Sebastian had grasped over and over, but it just seemed too heartbreaking to be real. Sebastian’s stiff smile melted into something warm and sympathetic, touched that Kurt would be bothered so deeply by his affliction.

“Well, you read the literature your therapist gave you, right?” Sebastian said with just a hint of teasing in his voice. “What did it say?”

Kurt’s hopeful gaze dropped to the table once more, and he shook his head.

“Highly unlikely at this stage.”

A tense, awkward silence grew between them, Sebastian watching over the rim of his water glass as Kurt pushed the remnants of his sautéed vegetables around the edge of his plate.

“Well,” Sebastian said when the slight scraping of Kurt’s fork against his plate became too much, “this is just about killing my buzz.”

Kurt’s head snapped up, his eyes going wide.

“Wait…” he sputtered, watching Sebastian push away from the table and stand, “b-but we’re not…what kind of buzz, exactly?”

Sebastian walked over to Kurt and took his elbow, silently persuading him to stand. Sebastian leaned into Kurt’s ear.

“The buzz of having a gorgeous man in my apartment,” Sebastian whispered, pulling Kurt carefully back to the living room and the dangerously comfortable sofa. Kurt ducked his head as he allowed himself to be ushered along. He wanted to object, but he didn’t want to sound self-depreciating, especially in light of the fact the Jane had been right during their last session. Kurt finally met someone who had a worse burden to bear in life than he did.

“What did you have in mind?” Kurt asked instead. Sebastian twirled them around, pushing Kurt gently back onto the seat cushion and then dropping down in the space beside him.

“A good old-fashioned game of Twenty Questions,” Sebastian offered. “I know you’ve got some. Lord knows I have a couple. And if we’re going to bring on the heavy, I’d rather do it sitting here next to you than across from you at the kitchen table. Agreed?”

“A-agreed,” Kurt stammered, though at this point he would have agreed to anything. Sebastian sat so close to Kurt that he noticed for the first time the unique, spicy scent of Sebastian’s cologne, and the subtle way his piercing green eyes looked from Kurt’s eyes to his lips and then flicked back up to his eyes again with just a subtle dart of his tongue over his lips as a chaser.

“Great. You go first.”

“Uh…” Kurt had a million questions, but now that he had the opportunity, his mind went blank. Or maybe there was just a short-circuit between his brain and his mouth the moment he saw Sebastian absentmindedly rub his hand up and down the leg of his jeans, working at stiff muscle in his thigh. Kurt folded his hands in his lap and tried to concentrate.

“Has this ever happened to you before?” Kurt asked. “You know…was there ever someone else whose face you could see, or am I the first?”

Sebastian screwed up his face as he thought, finishing off the massage of his thigh with a few firm strokes that had Kurt at a complete loss of upper-level brain function.

“There was this guy when I first moved here,” Sebastian began, not seeming to notice Kurt’s sudden distress as Kurt clasped his hands tighter. “He was jogging, and I was walking, just exploring the city. He almost ran into me, and when I looked at him I thought, just for a second, that I could see him.” Kurt nodded, more intrigued now than uncomfortable. “I heard a lady next to me murmuring something about a face tattoo, so maybe…you know…considering…maybe I did see him.”

Kurt nodded again, and Sebastian didn’t miss the tiny twinge that shifted Kurt’s features for a split-second from curious to disappointed.

“But I always believed,” Sebastian quickly amended, “that maybe I was alone for so long that maybe I hallucinated that image…that maybe my brain picked a face at random and filled in the pieces.”

Kurt raised a skeptical eyebrow at that comment, but his expression seemed lighter, more full of hope.

“When I moved to the city, I was in a bad place,” Sebastian explained, and this time Kurt’s expression of hope became more complete.

“I guess that sounds plausible,” Kurt agreed.

“Okay,” Sebastian said, clapping his hands together. “My turn.”

Sebastian wrung his hands together, trying to think of the perfect question to ask. Truth be told, he wanted to see Kurt squirm a little, but maybe loosen him up in the process.

“Okay,” he repeated when he thought up the perfect question. “Tell me what your last boyfriend was like.”

Sebastian expected an exasperated sigh, maybe a dramatic eye roll. He didn’t expect Kurt to drop his eyes to his folded hands and shift anxiously in his seat, with a look on his face as if he was trying to decide whether to answer the question or bolt from the apartment.

“I…I’ve never…” Kurt huffed in frustration. He peeked up to see Sebastian’s gorgeous face staring at him, a mixture of patience and good-natured ribbing in his expression. It was that feeling of being made fun of when Kurt didn’t share in the joke that made him snap. He looked up quickly, flashing steely eyes in Sebastian’s direction. “I’ve never had a boyfriend, okay!”

“Okay, Kurt,” Sebastian said, forced physically backward by Kurt’s change in mood. “Okay, I’m sorry. I didn’t…”

“What was your first kiss like?” Kurt asked, angrily pursuing Sebastian down the length of the sofa. Sebastian had no idea what Kurt had in mind, but he let Kurt crowd him against the armrest at the opposite end.

Sebastian’s slight frown morphed slowly into a mischievous smirk, and Kurt felt a subtle burn fill his chilled insides. There was so much more than friendly affection in that expression and Kurt was dying to know what Sebastian was really thinking when his lips curled into that alluring, cocky grin and his eyes glowed.

“How do you know there’s even been one?”

Kurt laughed bitterly, a single sharp sound that conveyed all his anger.

“Well, have you seen yourself?” Kurt spoke first and thought after. He stopped, his mouth dropping, mortified by what he said, but Sebastian just smiled.

“Parts of myself, yes,” he answered.

“I….Jesus fucking shit!”

Kurt stopped his pursuit in favor of hiding his face in his folded arms on his lap.

Sebastian wanted to laugh.

“Why are you so nervous, Kurt?” Sebastian soothed, but Kurt just groaned in response, finding it hard to speak with his foot lodged so firmly in his mouth.

Sebastian considered running a comforting hand over Kurt’s back, even going so far as to raise a hand and let it hover an inch or so above Kurt’s body, but he changed his mind, pulling the appendage back to his side.

“My first kiss…” Sebastian started, finding a spot on Kurt’s t-shirt and fixing his eyes on it, “…was with a girl who worked for my dad.”

Kurt slowly raised his head, confusion written in every line of his furrowed brow.

“Wait…are you…”

“No,” Sebastian finished quickly. “100% gay, but at the time, being so isolated from the world, maybe I was a little unsure, and this girl…I think my dad hired her to work around the house, just in case I was interested.”

Kurt absorbed the words for a moment, let them rattle around his brain until they made sense.

“Oh,” Kurt said quietly, his lips lingering in a little ‘o’-shape. Kurt didn’t hide his face again as he waited for Sebastian to continue.

“Anyway,” Sebastian drawled, “I guess she got tired of waiting…or maybe my dad threatened to fire her for not doing her job, because she cornered me one afternoon in the library and kissed me.”

Kurt breathed in sharp and quick, horrified on Sebastian’s behalf.

“And it was…”

“Awful,” Sebastian chuckled. “It was hard and tight lipped with a lot of teeth and tongue.” Sebastian made a face and shook his head as if he had just bitten into something sour. Kurt sat up quickly and laughed in spite of himself. “I was sixteen.” Sebastian shrugged. “My dad found out and made a big deal out of it.”

“How did you react?” Kurt asked, throwing tact under the bus for the sake of his intense curiosity. “I mean, what did you say to him?”

“Nothing. I never spoke to him again,” Sebastian admitted without a hint of regret in his voice. “You know, it may sound stupid, but I had a fantasy about how that first kiss would go, and he pretty much paid somebody to take that dream away from me.”

Kurt wanted to cry, out of anger, out frustration, out of sadness. He wanted to curse and scream. He suddenly felt restless, like he needed to pace or punch something or run. It was one thing to have people he didn’t know dislike him and judge him. Kurt was used to having complete strangers tell him he’d never achieve his dreams. But it was entirely inconceivable to him to have someone who professed to love you and raise you, whose job it was to protect you, tear your dreams apart for you.

“Sebastian,” Kurt said finally, “I didn’t know. I shouldn’t have asked. I kind of wanted to get back at you, but you didn’t know either…” Kurt ran his hands through his hair, blowing out a deep breath. “I guess…it’s your turn. If you want to keep going.”

Sebastian nodded, biting his lip. He moved back to his original spot, closer to Kurt on the couch.

“I do, actually,” Sebastian said, watching as Kurt’s eyes tracked his movement. Kurt didn’t look apprehensive, just surprised, and Sebastian noticed the moment Kurt’s breath hitched in his throat as he correctly read Sebastian’s intentions.

“Shoot,” Kurt whispered, the focus of his gaze dropping from Sebastian’s eyes to his lips and that tempting tongue that licked along the seam slowly. Sebastian stopped when he came so close that Kurt’s eyes couldn’t focus on him anymore, and a single ‘yes’ would be enough to close the distance of a shallow breath.

“Can I kiss you?”

 


	24. The First Time I Saw Your Face - Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is ostensibly the last chapter for this one-shot but I don't know...I kind of like these two. We'll see what happens in the future.

“Can I kiss you?” Sebastian’s breath danced across Kurt’s lips in tiny puffs that tickled and tempted and tantalized all at the same time.

Kurt stopped breathing. He literally, figuratively, physiologically, spiritually, and in every conceivable way possible could not move, and thinking was quickly following suit. His mind remained stuck in an endless loop of the moment when Sebastian had uttered the question, ”Can I kiss you?”.

Inside, Kurt was astounded, amazed, excited…but without meaning to, he looked absolutely terrified.

Sebastian edged back just a bit to better see the expression on Kurt’s face. He saw Kurt’s eyes growing wider still, his jaw clenched, lips pulled tight. Sebastian’s brow furrowed.

“Is something wrong?” he asked, not sure if he should feel flattered or offended.

“No—nothing,” Kurt stammered, finally finding his voice and not quite using it as effectively as he had hoped. “Nothing’s wrong, I…just…nobody’s ever asked me that before.”

Sebastian tilted his head, raising an inquisitive eyebrow.

“I liked it,” Kurt rushed to answer. “I…I liked it a lot.”

Sebastian chuckled gently. He scooted in closer, feeling the waves of apprehension that surrounded Kurt’s rigid body like a dark aura melt away.

“Would you like me to ask you again?” Sebastian asked quietly, already sure he knew what the answer would be. This time he reached out a hand to hook a finger beneath Kurt’s chin, smiling when Kurt shivered beneath his touch.

Kurt nodded before he could find the words to answer.

“Y-yes please,” Kurt said, wincing internally at the obvious sound of desperation in his voice. Sebastian smiled; he couldn’t stop smiling. He played over Kurt’s mouth with his own, shadowing Kurt’s lips, barely brushing against his skin.

“Can I kiss you?”

Sebastian’s voice was just a suggestion. Kurt felt the question in his mouth, against his lips, washing over his tongue. Kurt only nodded once, a single dip of his head, and Sebastian pulled in close, stopping for a second to breathe Kurt in before he slid his lips slowly across Kurt’s mouth and kissed him.

Kurt heard a moan – just a short, choked sound that vibrated across his skin and tickled his tongue - but he couldn’t tell which of them had made the sound. He focused on the overwhelming sensation of fulfillment that flooded his body, filling his senses straight to his soul. Kurt craved human contact, but he never realized just how much he _needed_ this. He needed a connection and here it was with all the beautiful bells and whistles that came with it; attraction, desire, longing – it was all there.

Kurt finally felt like he belonged. In a world that saw him as a freak, an outsider, here in the arms of this gorgeous man of all places, he found a niche to fill. Maybe it was the same thing Sebastian felt, the way he was certain that he could see Kurt for a reason; that in a world full of self-absorbed cynics fumbling to find their match, Kurt and Sebastian were marked so distinctly that at least the two of them could get it right – that they would see each other and just know.

Sebastian smiled. Kurt could feel it against his lips. Kurt’s lips still moved against his when Sebastian whispered, ”That was it. That was the dream.”

Sebastian pressed in on Kurt again, wanting more of that fantasy. Kurt got caught up in the kiss, became breathless with the taste of another man, the sensation of being touched intimately. He was so enthralled by the act itself that he barely registered Sebastian’s fingers, which had travelled over the thin fabric of Kurt’s shirt and tangled loosely in the hem. The first touch was a question, a light flutter of fingertips playing at the edge, asking for permission to sneak underneath. Kurt broke their kiss when he realized, his gaze falling to the fingers frozen in their dance. Slowly his eyes traveled up the length of Sebastian’s arm, meeting with green eyes, blown wide, pleading for Kurt to stop him now if this wasn’t what he wanted.

Kurt swallowed hard, but he found it difficult to say no to Sebastian. Those big green eyes just might be the death of him, Kurt thought. Kurt couldn’t help the feeling that he would completely break Sebastian’s heart if he refused. But he didn’t let that sway him. Kurt knew he could say no. This long stretch of tension-filled silence was a testament to Sebastian’s restraint. Kurt could reject him, and Sebastian would back down.

Kurt had a different, more pressing problem.

He didn’t want to say no. He wanted a man to touch him.

Correction.

He wanted Sebastian to touch him.

Sebastian started to pull his hands away, sure he had crossed a line. He took a deep breath, trying to calm the surge of fire in his blood that came with just the thought of running his fingertips over what he was sure was smooth, flawless skin.

The burn didn’t matter. The scars didn’t matter. All that mattered was Kurt.

Sebastian would wait for Kurt.

Luckily, he didn’t have to wait too long.

Kurt watched Sebastian’s fingers retreat, and grabbed his wrists quickly.

Kurt’s hands shook. He had no clue what he was doing. He didn’t know what it meant to be sexy. Kurt had no idea what Sebastian saw when those green eyes looked at him, when they raked over his body, when his urge to kiss and to touch and to feel overwhelmed him, leading them to this heated make-out session on his couch only a few days after they first met, especially considering on one of those days Kurt ditched him in a coffee shop with his eyes closed, waiting to be kissed.

Kurt knew nothing about seducing men, but he knew what he wanted, what he was willing to give.

And he wanted that with Sebastian.

Kurt pulled Sebastian’s hands close, let them hover over his stomach, feeling the intense heat of Sebastian’s skin come off him in waves.

Sebastian watched Kurt intently, holding his breath, waiting for him to move, to make a decision.

Kurt stared deep into Sebastian’s eyes as he moved forward just an inch, and Sebastian’s hands caressed his skin.

Sebastian moaned, actually moaned at the contact, and the sound fueled Kurt, gave him confidence. He advanced on Sebastian, straddling his hips and pinning him to the arm of the couch, leaning down to kiss him, hot and hungry. He could feel Sebastian’s want in the way his hands stroked along his skin so lightly it sent tingles throughout every nerve in his body; the way he rose up to meet Kurt’s kisses, chasing his lips when he pulled away to breathe; the way Sebastian became harder with every lick of Kurt’s tongue along the seam of his mouth, and the moans that Kurt swallowed greedily every time he rolled his hips down into Sebastian’s lap.

“Oh, K-kurt,” Sebastian stuttered, opening his eyes every time Kurt pulled away, locking on to fiery blue eyes, “beautiful, beautiful Kurt.”

Kurt’s breath escaped him completely, leaving a hard knot behind. How could he say that, Kurt wondered, feeling the way Sebastian’s fingertips outlined the ridges of his scarred abdomen, grabbed at Kurt’s roaming hands and held them – one hand perfect, the other with skin rough and repulsive.

How could Sebastian call him beautiful?

It was because Sebastian hadn’t seen. He didn’t really know. He’d felt the marks, sure, but he had never lain eyes on them.

Kurt took a deep breath, giving himself the courage to pull away.

“Wh-what?” Sebastian muttered when he realized Kurt was backing down. “Is everything okay? D-did I do something wrong?”

Looking down into Sebastian’s confused face, green eyes dark, kiss swollen lips frowning slightly, made Kurt’s heart hurt, but he needed strength.

“No,” Kurt assured him. “No…you did nothing wrong. It’s me…”

Sebastian shook his head slowly, comforted by the fact that Kurt hadn’t completely left him. Kurt sat poised on Sebastian’s hips, holding onto his hands while he spoke.

“I want to show you something,” Kurt started slowly, reaching for the hem of his shirt, preparing to pull it up. “Those papers I read…they say that in some cases your mind can fill in the blanks…it can justify things that you see by being exposed to the truth…”

“You don’t have to, Kurt,” Sebastian said, pulling Kurt’s hand away. “I don’t need to see it if you don’t want me to. No matter what, it can’t change the way I feel.”

“But…it feels like lying,” Kurt muttered. “And I don’t want to start a relationship with you that’s based on lies, Sebastian. I don’t want to hide anything.” Kurt looked significantly into Sebastian’s open, honest face. “I want you to like me for everything I am…and this is part of me.”

“It might not even work,” Sebastian argued.

“Do you like me, Sebastian?” Kurt asked quickly.

“Of course,” Sebastian said, looking around with a smirk at the position they were currently sitting in. “I would like to think it’s kind of obvious.”

Kurt smiled nervously.

“And you think that nothing is going to change that, right?”

Sebastian’s smirk fell along with Kurt’s eyes. Sebastian ducked his head to catch Kurt’s gaze again.

“Nothing you can show me is going to change that,” Sebastian said firmly.

“Then…I need to try.” Kurt’s voice wavered a little. “Please.”

Sebastian closed his eyes and nodded.

“Alright, Kurt,” Sebastian agreed. “If this is really what you want.”

“It is,” Kurt said quietly, unconvincingly.

Sebastian watched the t-shirt creep up Kurt’s skin. Kurt pulled it up over his head, biting back tears when he heard Sebastian gasp.

“Oh, Kurt,” Sebastian said in a voice that sounded more awed than disgusted. Kurt tugged the rest of the shirt off quickly to look at Sebastian, not prepared for what he saw. Sebastian wore a tiny smile on his lush pink lips, his hand hovering just above Kurt’s pale skin.

“Sebastian?” Kurt asked, trying to understand Sebastian’s expression.

“Kurt…has anyone ever told you how amazing you are?” Sebastian asked, laughing just a bit as he gave himself permission to touch Kurt again, gentle fingers tracing down the lines of Kurt’s muscles.

“Sebastian!” Kurt chided.

Sebastian’s fingers played across Kurt’s skin, traveling across the boundary from perfect skin to broken skin without flinching, as if the burn wasn’t even there, the look of awe never leaving his handsome face.

“Oh my God, Kurt,” Sebastian moaned, and for the first time he looked back at Kurt’s face. Sebastian smiled, trying to pull Kurt back down to meet his lips. “God, you’re gorgeous.”

“No!” Kurt wailed, pushing away. “No, I’m not!”

Sebastian’s look of confusion returned.

“Don’t you see it?” Kurt cried incredulously. “Or does your crazy brain injury keep you from seeing that, too?”

Kurt wanted to bite his tongue off after the words came out of his mouth. Sebastian looked hurt, but he made no move to shove Kurt away. In fact, he took Kurt’s hands again and held them tighter. Kurt sighed.

“I’m sorry,” Kurt said. “I didn’t mean that. I just…tell me, Sebastian. Don’t lie to me. Don’t feed me any new age meme poster stuff. Just tell me if you can see it.”

Sebastian bit his lip, weighing his options, and after a moment of silence, he opted to go with the truth.

“Yes,” he said quietly. “Now I see it.”

Kurt crumpled.

 _What have I done?_ Kurt thought sadly.

Why did he always have to push? Sebastian liked him. Why couldn’t Kurt just leave well enough alone?

“I see your face, Kurt,” Sebastian whispered, “and I see your scar. I see you, the way you are, and guess what?”

Kurt met his eyes, waiting for the sure-fire rejection.

“I don’t care,” Sebastian said, his face lighting up. “You’re still you, Kurt. And you’re still beautiful, inside and out, and now…I see you, just the way you are.”

Kurt didn’t know how to feel about that. He was so prepared for the let-down that for some strange reason not being rejected kind of made him angry.

Sebastian watched the different odd emotions play out over Kurt’s face, wanting so much to laugh at the confusion that turned into seething anger and then something that looked suspiciously like lust.

“How about this?” Sebastian offered, pulling Kurt close. “How about we slow this down a little bit?”

“You…do you want me to leave?” Kurt said, sounding affronted.

Sebastian shook his head.

“Not at all. I say we get drunk and watch reality t.v. until we fall asleep on the floor. What do you say?”

Kurt looked startled for a moment, staring at Sebastian for a good ten seconds before breaking into a fit of giggles.

“Sure,” Kurt said. “Why not?”

Sebastian sat up, taking Kurt with him, pressing up against him till they sat nose to nose.

“Do you like tequila?” Sebastian asked against Kurt’s lips, so close Kurt thought Sebastian would kiss him.

“I think so,” Kurt answered honestly. He was sure he had it before, but right now, with Sebastian's tempting lips so close and his taste still in Kurt's mouth, he couldn’t really remember.

Sebastian’s eyes flicked down to Kurt’s lips for a moment, and then back to his eyes.

“Can I kiss you again?” Sebastian whispered, inching even closer.

“Yes,” Kurt whispered. He ran his tongue slowly over his dry lips, hooded eyes staring into Sebastian’s as he prepared to be kissed.

But at the last moment, Sebastian backed away, that sinful smirk returning.

“That’s good to know,” Sebastian said, tossing Kurt onto the couch and heading for the kitchen.

***

Sebastian snored when he slept, not loud or obnoxious, like a freight train or his father. He made small little grunts, and the occasional moan. He muttered and once or twice he actually giggled. Kurt logged the information away for use in the future.

Kurt nuzzled against Sebastian’s chest and smiled, amazed that he would be tangled together with a sexy man, drowsy and still a little drunk; on the floor of the nicest apartment he’d ever seen.

After splitting almost a full bottle of tequila, Kurt was warm and relaxed enough to drift to sleep without a single care or concern in the world, but now that he started to wake up, he couldn’t stop his mind from working. He watched Sebastian sleep, felt the easy rise and fall of his chest as he breathed, listened to the little mumbling sounds he made, and instead of feeling lucky, he felt dismay over this beautiful moment that would eventually have to end.

But why did it have to end?

Kurt reviewed the whole night in his head, picked apart everything Sebastian said, everything he did, the way he looked at Kurt with such adoration in his eyes. Quietly Kurt debated the whys and why nots, and after he prepared a carefully thought out list of reasons and excuses as to why the two of them together was a bad idea, why it ultimately wouldn’t work between them, he thought about the kiss. That beautiful, spine-tingling, toe-curling kiss, and suddenly every argument, every sad and pathetic excuse became invalid. Kurt knew that when he finally made his way home, he wouldn’t be able to bring himself to shower or brush his teeth. He didn’t want to erase the taste of Sebastian from his mouth, or scrub away the traces of his touch from his skin. His body came alive at the gentle brush of Sebastian’s fingertips on his body, the way they seemed to know their way around, as if maybe Sebastian sat at home late at night and imagined the path they would take if they ever had the chance.

But Kurt was still so confused. It was easy for Sebastian to confess these desires behind closed doors, but would things change in the light of day, faced with the disapproving glares and the people who will most assuredly have something to say, either to their faces or behind their backs.

Kurt needed perspective; he needed to clear his head of the tequila and think, which got progressively harder and harder the more Sebastian wrapped his arms around Kurt’s body, this time resting an errant hand on Kurt’s ass.

Kurt never wanted anything so much as he wanted this man right now, and that’s why he had to get away.

It took several long moments of sliding and careful maneuvering to disentangle himself from Sebastian’s embrace, considering he really didn’t want to go. But he had to. He tiptoed to the apartment door and slipped on his Doc Martens, leaving them untied for the sake of speed. He picked up his backpack and took a final look around. He knew he should leave a note, but what exactly would he say? I’m leaving because I want you too much? I’m afraid you’re not going to talk to me in public?

You’re everything I never knew I wanted, so I’m leaving before I lose you?

It all sounded so stupid and cliché.

So, blowing Sebastian a final kiss, Kurt Hummel did what he did best.

He left.

***

Sebastian showed up late to class, not looking at all like death warmed over, which was the way Kurt felt, but more so for leaving Sebastian alone in the middle of the night than from the actual effects of the alcohol. Sebastian made a beeline for his desk when he arrived, and never once looked up to find Kurt.

Kurt understood. He’d be pissed, too.

Kurt Hummel score card: Royal fuck ups - 2. Chance of a relationship with a gorgeous man who seemed to genuinely like him – well, there he went into negative numbers.

Which was probably what Professor Evans was discussing. Kurt didn’t know. He spent the whole class period making moon eyes at Sebastian and hating himself more with every minute that ticked by. He barely registered the snickering of the girls sitting behind him until the word ‘pathetic’ broke through the stream of his consciousness, and his head snapped quickly around.

“Excuse me?” Kurt growled, and the girl who spoke, the blonde girl who had eyes for Sebastian since day one, looked visibly taken back, but recovered quickly when Sebastian’s emerald eyes shifted to take in the disruption.

“Don’t kid yourself,” the blonde girl persisted. “He’s just taking pity on you. He’s doing a good deed, befriending the freak of nature…you know, like community service.”

The girl with the auburn curls sitting beside blondie chuckled. Kurt stood, tossing his bag on over his arm, furious that he couldn’t come up with anything witty and biting to say. How could he when he believed every word they said?

It was easier to believe than the idea that Sebastian might honestly and truly like him.

The blonde girl grinned; a glimmer of triumph in her sky blue eyes.

“Are these bitches bothering you, babe?”

Kurt’s head snapped up just as Sebastian pushed past the bitches in question, wrapped his arms around him, and without a single word more kissed him soundly on the mouth. Kurt whimpered as Sebastian pushed forward, pulling Kurt deeper and deeper into the kiss, spurred on by the heat of Kurt’s mouth and the gasps of surprise blossoming all around.

“Maybe a little,” Kurt confessed breathlessly when Sebastian pulled away.

“Well then,” Sebastian whispered against Kurt’s lips, placing small kisses around the contours of his mouth as he spoke, “how about we blow this popsicle stand and head back to my place? I’ll make you dinner again…” Sebastian started kissing a trail down Kurt’s scarred cheek, eliciting more gasps from those few students left in the room to witness Sebastian’s public display of affection. “I’ll make you dessert…” Sebastian nibbled on Kurt’s ear. “I’ll do whatever you want…” Sebastian latched onto a spot on Kurt’s neck, finding a place where the skin was miraculously almost undamaged, and licked small circles with the tip of his tongue. Kurt locked his knees tight, fighting the overwhelming urge to wrap a leg around Sebastian’s hips and pull him closer.

“E-even if that means watch _Moulin Rouge_ and making out a lot?” Kurt stuttered, all too aware that the people in the room had gone quiet watching them.

Sebastian smirked, placing one last kiss to Kurt’s lips before pulling the back pack off Kurt’s arm and shouldering it alongside his own.

“Sounds perfect,” Sebastian purred.

Kurt looked at Sebastian for a long time, and Sebastian let him look, knowing he was working things out in his mind.

“Does that mean you still like me?” Kurt whispered, a little unsure of Sebastian’s possessive display.

Sebastian leaned close to whisper in his ear.

“I’m pretty sure that’s what this means,” he confessed. “Are you going to run away on me again, because I’ve got to tell you, that might be wearing a bit on my self-esteem…”

Sebastian pulled far enough away so that Kurt could see the smirk curling his lips.

“That is, unless you want me to chase you,” Sebastian murmured suggestively. “That could be fun…”

“That does sound like fun,” Kurt returned, trying to match Sebastian’s suggestive tone. “But not this time. Let’s just go. This party got tired a _long_ time ago.”

Sebastian offered Kurt his arm with a slight gentlemanly bow. Kurt wove his arm through, holding onto Sebastian’s bicep with his other hand. He made a point of aiming a haughty glare at the girls staring at them, mouth agape like fish out of water, and suppressed the urge to skip instead of walk.

Sebastian put a hand over Kurt’s and squeezed gently.

“What are you thinking, gorgeous?” Sebastian asked. Kurt felt himself blush to his roots at the nickname.

“I’m glad that I’ve decided to stop being a stubborn ass.” Kurt sighed. Kurt looked into Sebastian’s eyes; perfect green eyes that smiled affectionately back at him. “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful relationship.”

Sebastian rolled his eyes fondly and groaned.

“Oh, God. Really?” Sebastian murmured. “Did you think of that all by yourself?”

“Shut up, you freak of nature,” Kurt reprimanded with a little shove as the two disappeared out the door.


	25. The First Time I Really Saw You - Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a little tangent fic for 'The First Time I Saw Your Face'. This is Kurt and Sebastian after two months of dating, deciding to make love for the first time. Rated M. Requested by pretty much everyone :)

“Would it be predictable and cliché to admit that Halloween is my favorite day of the year?” Kurt asks as he watches Sebastian negotiate the lock to his apartment door with a hand covered in fake werewolf hair and long, black, artificial nails. Kurt rolls his eyes and takes the key, fitting it into the lock quickly and unlocking the door.

“Thanks, gorgeous,” Sebastian slurs through false teeth, pecking a kiss carefully to Kurt’s scarred cheek. Sebastian turns the knob, letting the door swing open wide, and gesturing for Kurt to enter with a gentlemanly bow and a flourish. Kurt shakes his head and laughs, bobbing a mock curtsy before skipping inside.

“I don’t think so.” Sebastian struggles over the words before giving up and pulling the teeth out of his mouth. He picks up three shopping bags from the floor in the hall and carries them in, shutting and locking the door behind him. “I mean, you won three costume parties at frats we weren’t even invited to, and you didn’t have to spend a single cent on a costume.”

Kurt salutes with a look of extreme pride.

“And that, sir, is what they call the height of thrift.”

Sebastian had originally balked at the idea of Kurt going out on Halloween as himself, thinking he was being cruel to his condition, and setting himself up for mockery and ridicule. But the overall effect was actually quite the opposite. While mingling among students who didn’t interact with him on the day to day, people actually looked at him with awe. They complimented him, talked to him, approached him. No one flinched at his presence, or stared…or pitied him. It was strange but, so far as Sebastian knew, also the most at ease Kurt had ever been in public since they met.

Sebastian couldn’t really find a reason to object.

“You have more candy here than anyone can eat in a lifetime.” Sebastian takes the bags of candy into the kitchen and sets them on the island.

“Oh, I can’t eat it,” Kurt explains, dropping down on the couch and melting into the overstuffed cushion with a sigh. “It would ruin my flawless complexion.”

Sebastian rolls his eyes as he starts to un-wolf, pulling the fake fur from his hands, face and neck carefully, wincing when Kurt’s homemade skin glue catches a few strands from his eyebrow and pulls at the hair. He had long since given up trying to defend Kurt from his own self-depreciating comments, since they seemed to be a coping mechanism ingrained in his behavior for far too long for any objection of Sebastian’s to have an effect.

“Nope, we wouldn’t want that,” Sebastian says instead, reaching into one of the bags, grabbing a bite-sized Twix bar, unwrapping it, and popping the whole bar into his mouth. He chews, moaning obscenely, with his eyes squeezed shut so tightly he doesn’t see the way Kurt’s head snaps around, eyes wide and hungry as he watches Sebastian’s mouth work around the chocolate, following his tongue when it licks over his lips, swallowing when Sebastian finally swallows, and then whimpering quietly at the sound of satisfaction Sebastian makes.

Kurt is so focused on the way Sebastian devoured the piece of chocolate, he doesn’t hear Sebastian’s question.

“Uh…Kurt?” Sebastian asks curiously. “Are you okay, gorgeous?”

“Uh…yeah, I’m fine. Why?” Kurt crosses his legs in an attempt to recover, praying that his cock will quickly lose interest.

“I just asked you a question.”

“R-really?” Kurt stutters. “What was it? I didn’t catch it.”

“What are you going to do with it all?” Sebastian repeats, reaching for another Twix. Kurt clenches his knees tighter as he sees the chocolate disappear into Sebastian’s mouth, waiting for Sebastian to close his eyes again before shoving the heel of his hand into his crotch to keep his threatening hard-on at bay.

“A-actually,” Kurt manages, trying to keep his voice calm and even in the face of Sebastian’s almost pornographic enjoyment of the candy in his mouth, “I’m going to take most of it to the kids at the burn center. They didn’t let them trick or treat around the hospital this year.”

Sebastian’s eyes pop open, the look on his face shifting from glee to guilt. Kurt smirks at Sebastian’s childlike expression.

“Sebastian, we have more than enough. You can steal all the Twix you want.”

Sebastian bounces on the balls of his feet where he stands, snatching one more chocolate bar before joining Kurt in the living room. Kurt looks at the remnants of artificial skin and fur still clinging to Sebastian’s skin, along with traces of eyeliner and face makeup, and cringes.

“We’d better get the rest of that off you before you clog your pores,” Kurt comments. “Did you leave the cold cream…”

“On the bathroom sink,” Sebastian finishes. Kurt winks, standing from the couch with a now practiced ease. He pats Sebastian’s knee as he walks by, missing the catch in Sebastian’s breathing at the casual contact. Kurt shuts the door behind him the second he enters the bathroom, and turns on the faucet. He splashes his face with ice-cold water repeatedly, trying to get his entire body to settle down. He turns the water off after he accidentally inhales some, coughing and sputtering into the sink. Kurt scrutinizes his reflection in the mirror, eyes roaming over the splotchy flush of red still visible on his cheeks, the way his eyes seem so foreign and dark. He can dunk his whole head in cold water; it won’t make it go away.

Kurt’s been with Sebastian for two months; two amazing, wonderful, fun, exciting months. It’s not like they haven’t done anything – Sebastian’s sofa has seen numerous heated make-out sessions, and more jaw-dropping, awe-inspiring, wet dream inducing hand-jobs than Kurt can count. Sebastian is so understanding, so patient, waiting for Kurt to be ready, slowing things down when they go too fast, sometimes saving Kurt from himself. So how should he go about opening the flood gates to the one thing that he put a halt to for so long?

How should he tell Sebastian he’s ready now?

“Kurt? Babe? Are you okay?” Sebastian calls from the living room.

Kurt scans the bathroom sink and finds the white tub cold cream, and an unopened package wedge-shaped cosmetic sponges.

“Yup. I was just…washing my hands,” Kurt calls back, quickly washing his hands to save face. He doesn’t want to lie to Sebastian, and in Kurt’s mind even little white lies count.

Kurt steps into the living with the cold cream and the wedges in his hands. Sebastian is sitting on the sofa, arms out to his sides, head reclined, eyes shut; the picture of complete and utter relaxation.

“Well, you look like you’re ready to call it a night,” Kurt observes.

Sebastian hears Kurt’s voice, hears him approach the couch and smiles, patting his thighs with his hands, a silent request for Kurt to sit on his lap.

“Not without you,” Sebastian murmurs. Kurt kicks off his shoes and socks and climbs onto Sebastian’s lap, straddling his legs, facing him. Kurt screws the cap off the cold cream while he stares at his boyfriend’s face - a mess of smeared and half-torn prosthetic makeup, yet still gorgeous as ever.

“This might be a little cold,” Kurt whispers. He uses his finger to scoop out a portion of the thick cream and starts applying it to Sebastian’s face. Sebastian sucks in a quick breath at the chill, but relaxes beneath Kurt’s fingers, letting his own hands creep up over Kurt’s thighs where their legs touch.

“But it feels good,” Sebastian sighs, hands traveling up Kurt’s legs to his hips, and then splaying out to move slowly over his ass. Kurt stops breathing at Sebastian’s touch, the way he always does, afraid that a wrong move would break the spell and Kurt would find himself alone, waking from a vivid dream, even after all this time.

“Does it?” Kurt asks, his voice shivering slightly. He uses a wedge to carefully remove traces of makeup from around Sebastian’s mouth and eyes.

“Mm-hmm,” Sebastian hums, sneaking his hands beneath Kurt’s t-shirt to gently caress his torso, one hand running smoothly up and down flawless skin, the other tracing the lines and ridges of his scar. Kurt always imagined that having someone touch his scar would disgust him, but Sebastian’s nonchalance, his cavalier attitude, makes it soothing. Kurt longs for Sebastian’s touch. Kurt’s whole body tingles, his quietly simmering hard-on returning with a vengeance. Unconsciously, he tightens his legs, and Sebastian smiles at the feeling of Kurt’s lithe, muscular legs clamping around him.

“Kurt…” Sebastian takes the pot of cold cream out of Kurt’s hand and sets it on the couch. He grabs Kurt’s free hand and brings it to his lips, kissing across his fingertips. “Would it be predictable and cliché to admit that I really want you?”

Kurt’s hand wiping Sebastian’s face stops. He watches Sebastian’s lips play across his fingers, suddenly imagining those lips dancing over other, more intimate places, and he swallows hard. Everything becomes tight and uncomfortable – his legs clenching around Sebastian’s lap, the button fly of his jeans digging into his aching cock, his chest where his heart swells against his ribcage. Sebastian’s eyelids flutter open and Kurt can see Sebastian’s eyes, just as dark as he knows his own still look.

“I…I’m not trying to rush you, Kurt,” Sebastian amends, his voice shaky and unsure. “I just…I want to be honest with you.”

Kurt cleans the last of the makeup off Sebastian’s face and tosses the stained sponge into a nearby trash can.

“I know,” Kurt says with a coy grin. “I do, too. That’s why I have to tell you…I wasn’t really taking all that time in the bathroom washing my hands.”

“You weren’t?” Sebastian raises an eyebrow and presses Kurt’s captured fingers to his lips again.

“No,” Kurt admits, shaking his head.

“Then, what were you doing?” Sebastian’s words against Kurt’s skin tickle his spine in the most delicious way.

“I was actually trying to figure out a way of telling you how much I want you, too.”

Sebastian’s smile reaches his eyes and lights up his entire face.

“Are you…are you telling me…”

“Yes, Sebastian,” Kurt says, rolling his eyes fondly. “I’m ready. I want to have sex with my gorgeous boyfriend.”

“Good.” Sebastian sits up to grab Kurt around the waist, and then in one fluid motion, stands up from the sofa with Kurt’s legs wrapped around his hips, “because I want to have sex with _my_ gorgeous boyfriend, too.”


	26. The First Time I Really Saw You - Chapter 2

Sebastian carries Kurt to his bedroom, a feat he has accomplished several times before and which never fails to make Kurt swoon since Sebastian can seem to manage it while kissing Kurt passionately and with his eyes closed.

"So," Sebastian starts, laying Kurt carefully on the edge of his king-sized bed, "is there…uh…anything you think we should talk about first?"

Kurt bites his lip, amused at how cocky, confident Sebastian gets flustered so quickly.

"Well, I thought we might just treat this like work-study," Kurt teases, climbing backward up the bed to the pillows, "and figure things out as we go along."

"Ooo…" Sebastian kicks off his shoes and pulls off his socks, then climbs on the bed to follow Kurt. "I love it when you talk like a teacher." He crawls over Kurt's body and hovers above him, dropping low to place kisses over Kurt's parted lips. "Do you have anything interesting to teach me?"

"Actually," Kurt says, chuckling nervously when Sebastian moves to suck a mark onto his neck, "I was kind of hoping to take my cues from you." Sebastian pulls back to look into Kurt's eyes. "I've never done this before."

"Well, neither have I," Sebastian reminds him, smirking at the way Kurt squirms beneath him, his entire body begging to be kissed.

" _You're_ the one who had the affair with that tart." Kurt loops his arms around Sebastian's neck and pulls him back down to meet his lips.

"What affair?" Sebastian barks through a laugh. "It was one kiss! One horrible…disastrous…awful…kiss…" Sebastian bites along Kurt's collarbone as he talks, pinning Kurt down with his body and chuckling every time Kurt yelps.

"Still…I just think that maybe you're a little more in the know, so to speak," Kurt admits. Sebastian bats his eyes innocently, waiting for Kurt to continue, watching his porcelain cheek burn red to match his scar. Kurt turns his face into the pillow beside him and groans. Sebastian drops his forehead to Kurt's shoulder and bites his lip to keep from laughing any more than he already has.

"Look," Sebastian moves to lie beside Kurt and snakes an arm beneath him, curling Kurt onto his side so they can speak nose to nose, "I'll admit to a rather extensive collection of reference materials, both video and periodical in nature."

"Why am I not surprised?" Kurt mutters, and Sebastian retaliates with a hard squeeze to Kurt's ass.

"But," Sebastian continues, undeterred, "I also have a very vivid…very romantic…very hot fantasy about the two of us..."

"Really?" Kurt feels more than breathless anticipation now, knowing that Sebastian has dreams about them together; dreams about making love to him.

"Yes." Sebastian brushes a hair out of Kurt's face, and places a delicate kiss to his forehead. "Maybe we can start there. Play it out and see where things go."

Kurt has never heard anything so sweet yet so erotic in his entire life. Sebastian kisses around Kurt's face while he waits for Kurt decide; and Kurt waits just a little longer than he intends because Sebastian's lips on his skin feel like paradise.

"Yes," Kurt mewls, unable to wait any longer to have his boyfriend. "Yes…let's do that."

Kurt's voice shakes, sounding wrecked and ruined but Kurt doesn't care since it matches Sebastian's voice perfectly.

"Good." Sebastian's eyes suddenly become darker, the pupils blown wide and crowding out his startling green irises. "Well, maybe we can start by removing a few articles of clothing."

"Uh…Okay…" Kurt voice betrays his uneasiness. "You still have the light on, though."

"Is that okay?" Sebastian reaches for the hem of Kurt's shirt and pulls slowly, giving Kurt the chance to say no. "I really want to see you."

Kurt is torn. He's always stayed hidden, but Sebastian seems to have a fetish with looking at him, and not just shallow glances. Sebastian watches him, examines him, hangs over his body and inspects every inch of his skin, kissing over the areas he inspects and humming with delight when Kurt gasps. Sebastian's eyes have never looked at Kurt with anything less than complete adoration, and Kurt has to admit that he preens for Sebastian. He wants Sebastian to look at him that same way when he's lying naked beneath him.

For the first time ever, Kurt wants to be seen.

As he tends to do with every decision, Kurt gets lost in his own head for a little too long, leaving Sebastian waiting with concern growing on his face.

Kurt sees Sebastian withdraw, sees the fire in his green eyes cool. He lurches forward, surprising Sebastian, surprising even himself. He grabs Sebastian's wrists and draws him close, leaning in to his ear.

"Undress me," Kurt pleads softly. "Please," he adds in response to Sebastian's hesitation. He licks around the outside of Sebastian's ear, nibbling on his ear lobe and sucking gently. Sebastian moans. He's never heard Kurt beg to be undressed. He moves quickly, fumbling with Kurt's shirt, eager to have it gone so he can remove his own and lay skin to skin with his beautiful boyfriend.

"See," Sebastian mumbles against Kurt's mouth, "I think you're better at this than you give yourself credit for."

"It's because of you," Kurt admits, lifting his arms to allow Sebastian to pull his shirt off, not even objecting when Sebastian tosses it haphazardly to the floor.

Sebastian yanks off his own shirt and tosses it away, looking down at Kurt with confusion in his eyes.

"When I'm with you, I feel free," Kurt confesses. "I feel beautiful…and sexy…"

"You are beautiful and sexy." Sebastian lies over Kurt, nuzzling against his neck. He inhales deep the scent of Kurt's vanilla shampoo, blazing a trail of kisses down the length of his neck.

"You think I am," Kurt says with a whimper. "That's all that matters."

Sebastian groans, but he's not going to win this argument, and now is not the time to fight. If Kurt feels sexy and beautiful in his arms, than Sebastian is going to show Kurt how sexy and beautiful he truly is. He captures Kurt's lips, sliding their mouths together, tenderly pinching Kurt's lower lip between his teeth. Sebastian rakes his fingers slowly down Kurt's sides, careful to avoid catching on the more delicate areas of his skin, knowing by now the right amount of pressure to make Kurt melt. Kurt's fingers are already working at the zipper of Sebastian's jeans, and every brush of Kurt's fingertips against his exposed skin sends tongues of fire licking up and down Sebastian's body until he begins to fear that this first adventure with Kurt at making love might turn out to be blissful, but painfully short lived.

Kurt boldly wraps his fingers around Sebastian's hard, leaking cock, and he almost gives in, almost lets Kurt stroke him till he's crying into his shoulder.

But Sebastian needs more. He wants to give Kurt more. He grabs Kurt's wrists and raises them above his head, lacing their fingers together and holding him down.

"I'm sorry, gorgeous," Sebastian responds to Kurt's whines of protest. "If you keep that up, this is going to be over really quick."

Sebastian feels Kurt smile against his mouth, swallows the tiny chuckles that bleed into moans as Sebastian slips his tongue between Kurt's lips. Sebastian's hands leave Kurt's to travel back down his body, but the second Kurt's hands move, Sebastian pins them back in place.

"Nope," Sebastian whispers. "These stay here for now." Sebastian moves again and Kurt patiently complies, his gaze burning hot as he watches Sebastian move down his body, nipping, licking and tracing over skin and muscle. Kurt's body strains as he struggles to stay still, and Sebastian takes his time exploring. Kurt's body is Sebastian's playground for the night, and he's in no hurry to leave.

Kurt holds his breath as he watches Sebastian's perfect lips kiss his skin. Feeling it is magical enough, but watching makes him feel like the voyeur of his own private show, where he's the privileged audience and the star. Kurt is pretty certain he could die right now and never be any happier. Daydreams of a boyfriend treating him like this, worshipping his body, enjoying giving him pleasure, were snuffed out long before he graduated high school. Kurt figured when he got to the city that maybe in a place like New York he might stumble across some cool boho guy who was decent…possibly blind…or just not all too discerning.

But Kurt hit the jackpot. He didn't have to settle. He found a man who loved him for the person he was; a man who could see past the scar.

(Truth be told, and it always made Kurt laugh to think about it, the scar seemed to make Sebastian a little hot. Someday Kurt would have to pluck up the courage to ask.)

Sebastian dips his tongue beneath Kurt's waistband and Kurt shivers, deep from his soul, his whole body trembling as it fights its way to the surface, but it's not until Sebastian's eyes dart up to meet his, emerald depths filled with raw need and want, that Kurt moans, long and loud and unbidden. Sebastian loves that moan. He craves the broken sound of strength and surrender in it. He swears he could cum on that sound alone.

Then Sebastian does something Kurt would have never anticipated. He pulls open the fly to Kurt's jeans with his teeth; the buttons popping through their holes one by one until the denim lies spread open. Kurt's mouth hangs comically agape at Sebastian who grins like mad at his boyfriend's lack of underwear.

"Sebastian?" Kurt's harsh whisper carries with it a small thread of nervousness, uncertainty. Sebastian's fingers bunch into Kurt's jeans at the hips, preparing to pull them down, but Kurt's eyes are wide, panicked. "Are you going to…" Kurt stammers. "Are you thinking about…"

"Not if you don't want me to," Sebastian says, trying to sound soothing with a voice that's essentially a potent layer of sin on sin. "I don't want to make you uncomfortable. But please, Kurt. I've been dying to do this with you. I'll stop if you want me to."

Kurt looks at Sebastian, his heart lodged in his throat, threatening to choke him to death in his lover's bed. Kurt has to decide for himself if this is moving too fast, or not fast enough. How can a blowjob be too much if making love is just enough? Kurt knows he has the power to say yes or no; to stop Sebastian now, or let him have him.

In the end, why would Kurt say no if he's exactly where he wants to be?

"Kurt," Sebastian whispers, licking his lips with want, but breathing deep to cool down and give Kurt the space he needs.

"Do you want me to stop, gorgeous?"


	27. The First Time I Really Saw You - Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's only one more to this scene after this, so I'm drawing it out as long as possible :) Warnings for oral sex.

"No!" Kurt begs, grabbing at the blankets beneath him, bunching the fabric between his fingers. "Don't stop! Please God, don't stop!"

With that, any and all pretense of Kurt as an indecisive, shy violet leap headlong out the window.

Sebastian stares at Kurt, stunned into silence, but not for long before his lips curl into a smooth, seductive grin.

"God, huh," Sebastian teases, lingering barely above Kurt's crotch, his warm breath washing over Kurt's cock with every word. "Well, hold the compliments until I'm done, gorgeous."

Kurt groans and drops his head to the pillow, slain by Sebastian's corny remark, but more for Sebastian making him wait. He braces himself, waiting for Sebastian to pull his jeans off, finding himself tense with anticipation, but with no word of warning Sebastian's velvety tongue caresses his length, moving slowly against his overheated skin. Kurt's back arches off the bed, and he growls deep in his throat with the unbridled ecstasy that courses through him. That first touch of Sebastian's tongue erases everything else – all of his anxiety, all of his fear. Every rational thought he's ever had is wiped completely away; his name, his phone number, his address, all gone. Every nerve ending in his body fires at once, overwhelmed with the sensation of hot and wet, a combination so mind-warping and perfect that Kurt can't imagine this being any more incredible.

But Sebastian keeps going. He takes Kurt into his mouth until the head of Kurt's cock brushes against the back of his throat. A tiny worry tugs at Kurt; an errant thought of, 'How is Sebastian going to breathe?' He rises up on his elbows to peek down at Sebastian just as Sebastian's eyes lock on his. His green eyes twinkle deviously. He wraps his lips tight around Kurt and sucks hard.

"Holy fucking shit!" Kurt screams, and he can feel Sebastian chuckling around him, the vibrations tingling like electrical sparks crackling over his skin. Kurt bites his lip and cries out, nearly lifting entirely off the bed before crashing back down to the mattress. Kurt expects him to stop, to ask him if he's okay, to see if what he's doing feels good (though how he can misinterpret Kurt's primal chant of "Oh God! Oh God!" Kurt can't possibly imagine), but Sebastian doesn't stop. He becomes bold, mercilessly holding Kurt's bucking hips still in his strong grasp, emboldened by his breathy pleas.

"Yes, Sebastian! Don't stop, Sebastian! Yes, yes, yes…"

Kurt's body isn't his own. He can't control what's happening, can't control his reaction. He curses unexpectedly when Sebastian swallows around him, and Sebastian curls his nails into Kurt's hips in response. Kurt can't stifle his moans, or the way his hips struggle to move. His restless heels dig into the mattress beneath him. Kurt's mind begins to spiral out of control, but he does know his body; he knows that he's submitting. Too soon, it's about to end too soon, and Kurt's body begs for it. He wants to cum. But he needs that end to be with Sebastian, together, wrapped in each other's arms.

"Sebastian…Sebastian, baby…stop," Kurt moans while his brain rebels, screaming, _'Are you kidding!?'_

Kurt is inclined to agree when Sebastian shakes his head and frees one hip to use his hand to fondle Kurt's balls.

"Oh, Sebastian!" Kurt groans, trying to pry himself free. "Baby, you're going to kill me, and…and we're supposed to do this together…don't you want to…God, Sebastian…"

Sebastian can hear his boyfriend's voice become rough and faint as he fights off his orgasm. Sebastian wants to give that to him, wants to feel him pulsing in his mouth as he cums down his throat. He's dreamt for so long about having Kurt this way – writhing and desperate and at his mercy.

But that's not the 'first time' he promised Kurt.

Pulling away from Kurt's cock, throbbing against his tongue, is the hardest thing Sebastian's ever done. Even with all of his protesting, Kurt whimpers when Sebastian stops.

"Later," Sebastian pants, crawling back up Kurt's body to kiss his boyfriend, hard and filthy on the mouth, "you have to let me finish that later."

Kurt nods against the assault of his mouth, grinning and giggling, folding his arms around Sebastian to hold him, his entire body vibrating and euphoric.

"Whatever you say," Kurt mumbles. "But for right now…"

"I know, I know…" Sebastian is preoccupied peeling Kurt's tight jeans down his thighs, abandoning Kurt's mouth to finish the job, but as soon as he does, he stops and stares. Yes, they've done a lot, mostly clothed and in the dark, but until now, Sebastian hasn't seen his boyfriend completely naked. Kurt's scar runs down the length of his body, over his hip and devastating his right leg (thankfully the fire managed to avoid his genitals. How Kurt managed to dodge that bullet, he'll never know. Maybe the great spaghetti monster in the sky has a soft spot for bereft, OCD children).

Here is Sebastian's last chance to balk, and from the blank expression on his face Kurt can't tell if he's actually going to take it. Sebastian has always been able to surprise him, and this time is no exception.

"Holy shit, Kurt!" Sebastian's voice shudders as he reaches for his fly, fumbling to strip off his own pants. "Tell me how the fuck I got so damn lucky."

Kurt opens his mouth to retort, trying to find a witty come-back, but Sebastian has left him speechless. He blushes, turning slightly to face away from Sebastian and his too-good-to-be-true compliments. Sebastian sees Kurt move away and pounces on him, moving Kurt's body towards him, hands holding Kurt's body against his.

"Don't turn away from me, gorgeous," Sebastian whispers, his breath hot against Kurt's cheek. "Don't deprive me of this."

"You're ridiculous!" Kurt giggles. Sebastian smiles bright, locking a leg around Kurt's and keeping him close.

"Maybe I am," he agrees. "But I'm the ridiculous man who's hopelessly in love with you, Kurt Hummel, so you're going to have to live with it."

That admission almost breaks him. Sebastian has told Kurt a hundred times or more that he loves him, but 'hopelessly in love' seems like something different, something more important entirely.

"Really?" Kurt murmurs. "Hopelessly?"

"Completely and hopelessly," Sebastian replies with the brightest smile Kurt has ever seen. "I swear I wouldn't say it if I didn't mean it."

"Good…" Kurt stutters, liquefying beneath Sebastian's disarming smile. "Because I was beginning to think I was the only one."

Sebastian's hand finds its way to the nape of Kurt's neck, thumb rubbing along the line of Kurt's neck.

"I love you." Sebastian's lips travel in soft kisses over Kurt's jawline. "I love you, I love you…"

Kurt leans in to Sebastian's kisses, absorbing his professions of love into his skin and notices for the first time, as his body is twined with Sebastian's, just how well they fit together. In this room, away from anyone who would see them and judge them, who might comment about Kurt's horrific scar or wonder out loud why Sebastian would ever date him, they're just two people in love.

That's all they ever need to be.

"Kurt?" Sebastian cards careful fingers through Kurt's hair, scraping his nails over Kurt's scalp in a tender call for his attention. "Baby? Have you given any thought to…"

Kurt's brow furrows as he meets Sebastian's eyes, but Sebastian ducks his head bashfully.

"Uh…wow, they never tell you about this part, do they?" Sebastian chuckles.

"What part?" Kurt breathes, completely lost.

"The awkward conversations." Sebastian clears his throat, cheeks pinking adorably. He meets Kurt's eyes again, refusing to feel ashamed. "Have you given any thought to whether or not you want to be on top or bottom?"

Sebastian bites his tongue, thankful he managed to say that all in one, fairly steady breath.

"Wh-…oh…" Kurt's eyes dart away as he considers. He never realized all the technical considerations of having sex for the first time. Sebastian's nervous laugh against his chin tells Kurt that he may have just absent-mindedly voiced that admission. Kurt conjures up the daydream of his first time that he's carried with him since high school - the cheesy romantic atmosphere, the music, the candles, the bed littered with rose petals - so different from reality with one constant factor the same; a man he adores making love to him.

"Bottom," Kurt says quietly, "I-if you don't mind, of course."

Sebastian's smile tells Kurt that he certainly does not mind.

"I…no, that's great, actually." Sebastian kisses Kurt one last time before rolling away to the table by his bed side, rummaging through the drawers for the things he needs. When Sebastian returns to Kurt, Kurt meets his sheepish smile with a raised eyebrow.

"Just out of curiosity," Kurt asks, "how long have you been planning for this?"

"Honestly?" Sebastian asks.

Kurt nods once.

"After that day I took you to the coffee shop."

Kurt pulls a face that makes Sebastian laugh furiously.

"B-but…but I left you there!" Kurt sputters. "You trusted me, and I ditched you!"

"Yeah, I know," Sebastian looks down at his hands, at the condom in his palm, and smiles thinking how far removed they were now from that day. "But I wasn't ready to give up."

Kurt's eyes follow Sebastian's gaze, looking down their bodies at the two of them tangled together, and smiles in return.

"I'm glad you didn't give up," Kurt admits, talking softly against Sebastian's skin.

Sebastian sighs, kissing Kurt sweetly along his hairline.

"Me, too."


	28. The First Time I Really Saw You - Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is the last part of this story. If you've already read the first three parts, I would recommend re-reading them as I touched them up a bit (I didn't change the story, just freshened up the writing.)

Sebastian’s touches are more magic than Kurt has ever dreamed possible. Whatever reference material Sebastian has been watching definitely paid off, but Kurt would like to believe that _he_ has some part in this, too; that Sebastian is reacting to having Kurt naked in his arms; that he’s reliving the fantasy he’s dreamed of during nights spent alone in bed, longing to make love to him.

Kurt’s had them, too, and they’re a lot like this.

Sebastian’s lips explore his skin, _all_ over his skin, trying to touch and kiss and be everywhere at once. His hands follow his lips and trace along their path, searching out and memorizing all those spots that make Kurt shiver. He finds them on Kurt’s neck, on the bend of Kurt’s elbow, his hip, his inner thigh, behind his knee, his ankle…

Kurt has his chances, too, when he can get Sebastian to lie still and let him have his way. As gorgeous as Sebastian is when he’s meticulously styled and dressed, it doesn’t even compare to what he looks like now: gloriously naked, his whole body on display, cut and muscular, tanner than Kurt by far and not a blemish or scar to be seen. His hair is mussed from carding his fingers through it every time Kurt finds a hidden spot that makes Sebastian weak. Kurt is mesmerized by Sebastian’s body, especially his skin: the interesting combination of sweet and musky smell to it, its salty taste and smooth texture beneath his tongue. Kurt feels an unexpected surge of power every time he manages to make Sebastian whimper; he gets drunk off it, becoming daring, more confident.

Kurt slips down Sebastian’s chest, crawling quick and cat-like, eager at trying his hand at having Sebastian in his mouth, but even in his blissed-out state, Sebastian catches on and stops him, panting heavily, sweating in reaction to Kurt’s torment, even in the cool air.

“No, gorgeous,” Sebastian says when Kurt pouts. “I have to have you _now_.”

The low, guttural growl in Sebastian’s voice when he says the word ‘now’ puts the smile back on Kurt’s face. Sebastian grabs his hands and leads him back to the head of the bed. In the heat and passion and anticipation of the next few minutes, conversation becomes less awkward and more rushed, as if both men have gone beyond waiting to be together.

“Do you want me to finger you?” Sebastian asks, his voice rough and husky in Kurt’s ear.

“No…no…I just want you,” Kurt says, hurrying to get into some sort of position. “How do you want me?”

“On your back,” Sebastian responds without hesitation. “I want to see you.”

Kurt bites back both a protest and a moan with his lower lip trapped between his teeth as he lays back and watches Sebastian tear open the condom wrapper with his teeth and roll it over his erection like a pro.

“Uh…” Kurt raises an eyebrow, curious if all alpha males are born with an inherent ability to put on a condom because Kurt is sure that under the same circumstances he’d go through at least three before he managed to get one on right.

“Practice, alright!” Sebastian chuckles sheepishly, inferring Kurt’s unasked question from the look in his eyes, his cheeks flaming red. “I didn’t want to look like an idiot.”

“Oh, honey,” Kurt coos, sitting up to loop his arms behind Sebastian’s neck. “You could never look like an idiot.”

Sebastian’s shifting eyes meet Kurt’s, the smile in them soft and insecure.

“Really?”

“Yes, really,” Kurt assures him, pecking light kisses to the contours of Sebastian’s mouth. “And I think that you practicing is adorable…if not a little odd.”

Sebastian scrunches his nose and pushes a giggling Kurt backward onto the bed. Sebastian sucks in a sharp breath and Kurt’s giggles suddenly die in his throat. Kurt’s ice blue eyes are close to black as he peers up through dark eyelashes at his gorgeous boyfriend kneeling naked between his legs. Sebastian’s every nerve in his body fires, his entire being pulsing with his need to be buried inside Kurt.

“Are you ready?” Sebastian asks, his voice shuddering but much more confident than before.

“Yes.” Kurt tries to match the confidence in Sebastian’s voice, not wanting to ruin it all by revealing just how terrified he actually is.

Not about being with Sebastian. He loves Sebastian. He wants Sebastian. And he knows that he will remember this night for the rest of his life.

But afterwards, everything is going to change.

Their relationship…even themselves.

Kurt fears change as much as he desires it. He holds on to this trepidation, savors the weight of it – the time between moments when change begins.

Sebastian leans over Kurt with a small smile and a reassuring kiss.

“It’s okay. I’m a little scared, too,” he divulges

Kurt nods against Sebastian’s forehead, relaxed now that he knows he’s not the only one.

Sebastian’s eyes stay locked on Kurt’s as he flips open the lid to the bottle of lube. Kurt wonders why this isn’t more uncomfortable. He should be more self-conscious, but he’s not. He’s with Sebastian.

Sebastian who loves him.

Sebastian who fought Kurt’s stubbornness to have a chance with him.

Sebastian who thinks he’s beautiful.

Kurt feels the slicked, blunt head of Sebastian’s cock pressing against his cheeks, pushing in cautiously, trying to find his entrance. Sebastian ducks his head, muttering apologies as he constantly misses. Kurt reaches between them and Sebastian watches as Kurt carefully wraps his fingers around Sebastian’s length and shows him the way.

“Okay,” Sebastian sighs, taking back control.

Sebastian moves so slowly that Kurt can’t tell if anything at all is happening until in a blinding stab of _heatstretchpain_ Sebastian breaches Kurt’s entrance. Kurt can’t repress his reaction, throwing his head back against the pillows with a hiss, squeezing his eyes tight and clenching his teeth.

“Oh God! Kurt!” Sebastian’s voice sounds so absurdly panic-stricken that if Kurt could get his body to do anything else, he would laugh. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! Let me just…”

Kurt feels Sebastian move back and his eyes fly open. He grabs Sebastian’s arms, gripping harder than he intends.

“Don’t you dare pull out!” Kurt hisses. “Just…just don’t move. Okay?”

Sebastian nods, visibly apprehensive, but willing to take Kurt at his word.

Kurt breathes deeply through his nose, filling his lungs to bursting in an attempt to focus on anything but the pain, cursing silently at his body for ruining this for him. He trains his gaze on Sebastian’s worried face, watching the strain of holding still crease his brow. Kurt continues to breathe until the burn fades to a minor discomfort, and he can get his legs to relax again, dropping open around Sebastian.

“Okay,” Kurt says. “I’m good.”

Sebastian moves again, inching forward into Kurt’s tightness and heat, warring with himself for control as Kurt’s body closes around him, moaning with the growing intensity of it.

Kurt groans and Sebastian stops, kissing Kurt languidly to give him something else to think about until Kurt murmurs against his lips and Sebastian keeps going.

Sebastian bottoms out completely with the most decadent sound of pleasure Kurt has ever heard.

“How was that?” Sebastian asks, reaching a shaking hand to brush the hair out of Kurt’s face. “Not too terrible, I hope.”

“No,” Kurt says, turning his head to kiss Sebastian’s palm as his hand lingers near his face. “Not terrible at all.”

“How does it feel?”

Kurt smiles at Sebastian’s curiosity.

“Full,” he reveals. “So incredibly full…like I want to push you back out, but just so I can pull you back in again.”

Sebastian grins, his gaze traveling down Kurt’s body, his eyes shy and thoughtful.

“What about you?” Kurt asks, fidgeting with the sheet beneath his fingertips.

“Amazing.” Sebastian’s grin grows wide. “You’re so hot…like an oven. It’s almost unbearable. And tight, but perfectly tight…like you were made for me.”

Kurt turns his head, laying his left cheek against the pillow so he can blush in private.

 _Made for him_. Kurt’s whole body ignites at the thought. Those words make it easy to believe everything Sebastian says about fate bringing them together. Maybe it is all true.

“Gorgeous?” Sebastian says quietly, drawing Kurt’s attention back to his face. “Do you want me to move?”

“Yes.” Kurt’s eyes travel down to where Sebastian’s fingers curl over his thighs. “Yes, please.”

Sebastian pulls back, his hands trembling where they hold onto Kurt’s legs. Kurt’s eyes stare transfixed on Sebastian’s face, watching his lip quiver with restraint, his brow furrowing in concentration, the beautifully tortured expression on his face. He pulls almost completely out then slides back in, quicker this time.

Kurt’s body jumps beneath him as if hit by a bolt of electricity, and Sebastian stops again, not wanting to go too far too fast.

“N-no…don’t stop,” Kurt stammers. “Do that again.”

Sebastian moves again, dragging back and pushing in harder, delighting when Kurt’s reaction is the same, but with the addition of a shattered whimper.

“Yes, Sebastian,” Kurt says, stars swirling into view before his eyes. He feels euphoric, light-headed. He wants that…hungers for it. “More…”

“More?” Sebastian doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The most incredible feeling, the most incredible experience in his life so far, and Kurt wants more of it.

“Please,” Kurt whines, tugging at Sebastian’s arms, trying to get him to do something…anything. “More.”

Kurt is sore, but the intoxicating close proximity of Sebastian’s body, the delicious slide of his cock in and out with every thrust, and that sensitive bundle of nerves that light up Kurt’s body like a candle whenever Sebastian brushes against it more than make up for it.

Sebastian moves again, no more stops, no more pain, just balancing on the crest of a wave that carries them along together. Sebastian’s fingers trail down Kurt’s thighs, grabbing and kneading at his hips, giving him leverage to move deeper inside, and Kurt, restless and writhing, rises up to meet him, digging his heels into the mattress as he lifts his body. Soon, what started out as innocent love-making consumes them both. Kurt mutters curses under his breath with every flawless assault, every touch that crosses the boundary from tender to desperate. Sebastian bites his lip till it bleeds, digs his nails into Kurt’s flesh, leaving crescent-shaped marks behind. The sound of Kurt’s foul mouth makes Sebastian drive into him harder, longing to go deeper. He grabs Kurt’s legs and lifts his ass off the bed, hooking Kurt’s knees over his bent arms.

The cavalcade of Kurt’s cursing turns into a chant of Sebastian’s name, which bleeds into a single sound. Sebastian watches Kurt’s body go still as he absorbs his thrusts; his eyelids drift closed, lips quivering, moving around silent words. Beads of sweat start to form along Sebastian’s hairline, rolling down his brow and along his cheeks.

Kurt’s fingers crawl down his body, reaching for his forgotten erection. Sebastian wishes he can take care of that for him, but he’s afraid of dropping Kurt. Once Kurt starts stroking himself, Sebastian is glad he didn’t rush to the rescue. The image of Kurt’s hand working over his own cock, his back arching, body balancing on his shoulders, is hotter than Sebastian’s dirtiest wet dream.

“Oh God, Kurt,” Sebastian mutters, eyes locked on Kurt’s hand as it moves from base to head slowly, thumb running along the slit on top before starting the trip back down, twisting slightly. Sebastian can feel Kurt’s whole body respond, thighs tightening around his hips, his ab muscles quivering with every pass. “Kurt…I don’t think…I think I’m…”

Sebastian struggles, but no matter how he tries to word it, he can’t come up with a coherent sentence.

“Good,” Kurt groans with another swipe of his thumb. “Because I…”

The meaning is there, but the words are gone, stolen from Kurt’s throat by the renewed vigor of Sebastian’s hips slamming against his body. Sebastian fights to keep his eyes open, even when he wants to drop his head back to concentrate on the heat of Kurt’s body around him. Instead, he watches Kurt fall apart, shuddering, hips failing to match Sebastian’s pace, cumming in thick, white stripes over his stomach and chest. Only then does Sebastian let himself crumble, piece by piece fracturing away as his orgasm builds, surging through his body and out through his limbs, exploding inside him until he can’t breathe, can’t think, can hardly move. How he manages to ride out his orgasm without collapsing to the floor is incredible, but before too long he crashes back to earth, having presence of mind enough to lay Kurt back onto the bed, withdrawing from Kurt’s body carefully, conscious of how he breathes quickly through his teeth, bracing against the sting.

They lay still, the sound of their combined breathing filling the otherwise quiet air, everything hot and humid around them. Sebastian uses what little energy he has to drag himself up onto the bed, helping his boyfriend up the rest of the way to the pillows, which seem to have migrated in different directions. Sebastian pulls the case off of the closest one and cleans Kurt up with it, turning it inside out to wipe himself down when he’s done.

Their skin quickly cools as Sebastian cuddles against Kurt, lying behind him and enveloping Kurt in his embrace.

“So, what did you think?” Sebastian asks, cringing internally at the lameness of his own question, grateful that he’s lying behind Kurt so he doesn’t have to see his reaction. Kurt laughs; Sebastian can feel the movement of Kurt’s shoulders against his lips as he leaves a trail of kisses along his back.

“Well,” Kurt says, clearing his throat, “I thought it was pretty wonderful…but to be fair, I don’t really have anything to compare it to.”

Sebastian pinches Kurt under the arm, and Kurt laughs harder, squirming to break away. Sebastian holds him tighter.

“Well, what can we do about that?” Sebastian traces lazy patterns over Kurt’s chest, enjoying the dance and play of Kurt’s muscles when he finds a ticklish spot.

“How about a round two?” Kurt suggests, peering back at Sebastian over his shoulder with a devilish grin. “I mean, since now I have a frame of reference.”

Sebastian rolls his eyes to the ceiling, mimicking mulling the idea over while Kurt turns in his arms, sliding every inch of his body against every inch of Sebastian’s so Sebastian can feel just how much Kurt is already rising to the challenge.

“Sounds fair,” Sebastian says with a smile, “as long as afterwards I get to fall asleep in your arms.”

“Deal,” Kurt whispers as he presses warm lips against Sebastian’s skin.

“And you won’t run off on me in the middle of the night?” Sebastian teases.

Kurt stops kissing Sebastian to meet his eyes with an earnest gaze.

“Babe,” Kurt says, adoring the feel of Sebastian’s body so close to his own, “I stopped running away from you a long time ago.”


	29. The Muse - chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay - this turned into a two chapter story. This is for the prompt ‘ghost’. This first chapter is pretty heavy, so I apologize ahead of time. Warning for major character death (no gore or description of any kind), alcohol use, vomiting, and allusions to thoughts of suicide. Please believe me that I will make up for the first chapter in the second chapter, and this story does have a happy ending.

Sebastian hated working over his vacations. Wasn’t the point of being an artist that e got to make his own hours, work alone, and spend as much time at home having all sorts of wild and crazy sex with his gorgeous husband?

Not this time, apparently. No sir-ee. Since City Hall decided to do a complete renovation, including all original artwork from renowned local artists, he had been stuck in meetings and consultations nearly all week while his beautiful Kurt spent long hours occupying himself at their vacation home just outside the city. Kurt said he didn’t mind, seeing as they were doing some renovations themselves, and being alone gave Kurt the opportunity to match fabric to color swatches in peace.

But Sebastian had enough of forgoing noon sex in favor of another discussion with regard to whether or not a Monet inspired acrylic painting of water lilies would be appropriate for the treasurer’s office or not.

Sebastian snuck out quietly when a heated argument over abstract public sculptures for the main road islands broke out, grabbing a blank canvas in the guise of starting a raw sketch, and slipped away under the cover of his silver Mustang. Sebastian hit the interstate and sped all the way home, making it to the tiny summer home in record time.

Sebastian loved how quiet and secluded it was in this, their small patch of heaven. The seclusion was perfect because no one ever complained about their loud sex, and the quiet was ideal for finding Kurt, since he sang almost all the time when he was alone.

Sebastian stood still, but he could hear no singing. Kurt’s Navigator was parked outside so he knew his husband was home. He ran through the rooms, the blank canvas tucked beneath his arm, obnoxiously making as much noise as possible to alert his husband of his arrival.

“Kurt!” Sebastian called, walking through the vacant kitchen quickly in search of his muse. “Kurt! I need your sweet ass!”

“I thought you had to work this afternoon.”

“I _am_ working,” Sebastian explained. “I’m doing a portrait of a gorgeous man, as soon as I find him.”

“No,” Kurt chuckled. “You’re supposed to be doing a landscape for the new city planner’s office.”

“No,” Sebastian insisted, inspecting another empty room. “I’m painting you. Naked if I have my way.”

“You just want to fuck,” Kurt teased.

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Sebastian growled suggestively. “Now, where the hell are you? This house isn’t that big.”

“Out here,” Kurt called back. “I’m installing the new track lighting.”

Sebastian turned the corner to the patio that they had just added on to give Sebastian a protected outdoor work space and there was Kurt – his intrepid Kurt – braving their fifty year old rickety ladder to install a row of lights with a chrome runner and bonnets. Sebastian winced when he saw the ladder shift and tilt beneath Kurt’s weight, but Kurt seemed oblivious, balancing precariously on his toes to screw the fixture to the wall.

“I really wish you’d let me do that, gorgeous,” Sebastian said, trying to hide the concern in his voice. He put the canvas down and held the ladder secure beneath his husband. “I mean, look at you reaching up like that. I am taller than you.”

“Sebastian,” Kurt admonished, looking down with playful blue eyes, “spraying your hair until it stands up to oblivion doesn’t count as you being taller than me.”

At that moment, Kurt moved sideways and the ladder lurched. Sebastian reached out in time to keep Kurt from toppling head first into the retaining wall.

“Okay, that’s enough,” Sebastian said, pulling on Kurt’s leg. “Get down now.”

“But, I only have one screw left.”

“I don’t care,” Sebastian said, this time more firmly. “Get your ass down off that ladder now.”

“Geez,” Kurt huffed, climbing down the rungs. “You certainly have a thing for my ass.”

“Well, it happens to be a perfect ass.” Sebastian grabbed Kurt’s ass and squeezed for emphasis. “And I don’t want anything happening to it.”

Sebastian pulled Kurt close, relishing the way his body fit perfectly against his own, like Kurt was carved out of the same piece of stone - like they were made for each other.

“So, you only care about my ass?” Kurt asked, gazing up at Sebastian, tilting his head and pouting in mock offense.

“Among other things.” Sebastian captured Kurt’s lips quickly, not waiting for an invitation, trying his best to kiss the teasing pout from Kurt’s lips.

If Kurt’s whimpers were any indication, Sebastian was winning.

The sound of Sebastian’s cell phone ringing called a foul on his game.

“Um, you should probably get that,” Kurt tried to say, his voice muffled by Sebastian’s lips pressing insistently against his.

“Nope,” Sebastian replied.

“But, it’s probably city hall, wondering where their painter is.” Kurt laughed when he finally managed to pull away.

Sebastian huffed, narrowing his eyes as his expression became resolute.

“I’m going to answer that, just long enough to tell them to fuck off, and then I’m getting you naked.”

Sebastian peppered Kurt’s cheeks with kisses to a symphony of his giggles, then with a heavy handed swat to his backside, Sebastian reluctantly released his husband and raced inside to answer the phone.

Sebastian reached the phone just as it stopped ringing.

“Oh, no,” Sebastian whined jokingly. “I didn’t get here in time. Whatever shall I do?”

It didn’t matter to him anyway, since no power on heaven or earth could have convinced him to leave his husband just as he was preparing to ravish him.

Sebastian heard an odd noise, nothing too foreboding, but it somehow managed to fill him from head to toe with dread. He didn’t know how he could feel the ladder tilt from all the way in the kitchen, but the sensation was like a taut line tugging at his heart. He felt the sway as if he was standing on it instead of Kurt. After that swoop of sudden inexplicable nausea hit him, everything happened absurdly fast, as if the universe was saying, “Fuck you, Sebastian Smythe! I don’t believe in second chances.”

He heard Kurt yelp, then a loud metallic clatter, and a horrifying crack, like pottery hitting the pavement.

“Kurt!” Sebastian screamed in panic, having the sense of mind to grab his phone and start dialing 9-1-1, knowing in his heart that his husband would need an ambulance. “Kurt, honey! Are you al…”

Sebastian got his answer the minute he broke through the patio door.

No, Kurt wasn’t alright.

Kurt definitely wasn’t alright.

It rained the whole day when they buried Kurt. It was such a change from the weeks of perfect weather, and Kurt had mentioned how they needed a good, all day rain storm to force them inside where they could snuggle together on the sofa and just listen to the drops fall. Kurt was a quintessential pluviophile – he found peace in the rain.

Sebastian hated the rain. He hated getting wet. He hated when his soaked clothes stuck to his skin and the dripping cold water ran down into his socks. He hated the sloshing inside his shoes, and the way they never completely dried. But as much as he hated the rain, he was a pluviophile for Kurt.

He loved Kurt, and the rain made Kurt happy.

So Sebastian stood beside Kurt’s casket beside his open grave and waited in the rain. He waited while the mourners paid their respects. He waited while everyone hugged and cried. He waited until the final acquaintance had wondered somberly away. He waited until they lowered Kurt into the ground, and even after there was nothing left to witness, he waited until nightfall, when the clouds parted and the stars came out.

Burt Hummel returned a little before midnight in search of his missing son-in-law, but Sebastian still refused to leave. So Burt waited with him, even though Sebastian was sopping wet, stifling sniffles that he knew would bloom into a full-blown cold.

At some point Sebastian finally convinced himself that Kurt wasn’t going to magically return, so he took Burt’s hand and let himself be led away from his husband forever.

Sebastian’s forehead burned with fever by the time Burt got him back to the little summer house that was no longer a home, but Sebastian wouldn’t let Burt stay. And as much as Burt objected, as much as he put up a fight, in the end he didn’t have the strength to battle his own grief and Sebastian’s, and he left the man alone.

Sebastian walked through the dark house, straight out back to the patio, struck by a morbid sense of déjà vu. He sat down heavily on the wicker chaise and looked up at the clear sky, but his vision of the stars was obscured by something shiny hanging just a few feet above his head.

The light fixture.

The stupid track lighting.

Sebastian gazed up at it in shock as it dangled on its two screws.

The fixture was here, perfect and installed except for one damn screw, but because of it, Kurt was dead.

Sebastian snapped.

He looked around in a panic, spotting an abandoned hoe over by the retaining wall, not a few feet from where Kurt had fallen. Sebastian grabbed it, and with a renewed vigor, he attacked the lights.

“God damned mother fucking lights!” he screamed. “What the fuck did we need these for, Kurt? Why did you have to put them up when I asked you to wait! Why didn’t you wait, Kurt? Why couldn’t you just sit on your fucking ass and wait!?”

The sound of the hoe hitting the lights and the brick behind it resonated. The force caused the gardening implement to vibrate painfully in Sebastian’s hands, but he only tightened his grip and struck harder.

“Fuck you, Kurt! Why did you have to put up these God damned lights!” Sebastian shattered the bulbs sending a spray of fine glass particles falling all over his hair and clothes. “I told you to wait! I told you I’d do it! I didn’t need the lights! I need you, Kurt!”

He destroyed the lights, and managed to chip a good portion of the brick out of the wall as well. He stumbled back into the house, rifling through the cabinets for a bottle of whiskey, tossing aside already empty bottles until his hand came in contact with one that felt mostly full, and he pulled it down. Except this bottle wasn’t a spare bottle of Jack. It was Kurt’s solitary bottle of tequila.

Sebastian’s first urge was to toss the bottle up against the wall. He looked around him for an open space to toss it when he caught sight of the paintings. A brand new crop of paintings he had started working on for a new show in the fall – all of them featuring his muse…all of them featuring Kurt. He took a long swig of the tequila to steady his nerves, and with his body burning hot and fire in his veins, he grabbed up the paintings, every last one he could find. He carried them outside, dropping them into an undignified pile on the bare earth. He doused them all with the tequila, gritting his teeth as the golden liquid violated the paint, in some cases causing it to bleed down the canvas. When the bottle was just about drained, he rummaged through his pockets for his silver Zippo. He flipped it open with a click, a small orange flame springing to life. Sebastian tossed the lighter into the pile. The flame barely touched the heap before the whole thing went up in a blaze.

“There Kurt,” Sebastian grumbled bitterly, his throat raw from screaming and alcohol, “was it worth it? Were the Goddamned lights worth it? It’s done. All of it. No more muse…no more you…no more paintings. I’m done.”

Sebastian slowly drained the rest of the tequila while he watched the love of his life and all of his work devoured by flame.

Already weak from being tired and sick, Sebastian drank himself to sleep. It seemed like too much work to trudge back to the house and climb into bed, so he lay down on the hard packed earth next to the destroyed canvases that still managed to maintain a slow burn. Everything smelled of acrid smoke and Sebastian hoped that it would seep into his skin and suffocate his brain. Or maybe an errant cinder would jump onto his alcohol soaked clothes and he would burn to death in his sleep. Maybe a sudden temperature drop would freeze him to the ground where he lay. Either way, without Kurt, his bed wasn’t his bed, his home wasn’t a home, and Sebastian wished more than anything that he could just find the quickest and most efficient way to die.

Sebastian had hoped that he would black out, surrender to oblivion where time passed by but he would have no memory of it, but he had no such luck. Locked into sleep, he had the same dream, over and over, of Kurt falling from the ladder, and no matter what Sebastian did, no matter how fast he ran, no matter if he never went into the house to answer the phone, Kurt still died.

This was an absolute. It never changed.

At some point before dawn, Sebastian heard a rustle like footfalls in the dirt, and he struggled through the fog in his brain to open his eyes. If he was going to be mauled by coyotes, or even a mountain lion, he wanted to know. But what he saw was a man, at least what looked like a man, and a beautiful man at that, approaching the pile slowly as if a sick, drunk, and urine smelling Sebastian wasn’t lying in a heap just a few feet away. The man bent over the pile of burnt canvases, a shaking hand pressed to his lips, and a small, pained gasp escaped his mouth.

Sebastian had an overwhelming urge to reach out to the man, to apologize for setting the paintings on fire, but for what reason, he couldn’t explain. Sebastian groaned, trying to form words with his dry, sticky mouth. He rolled slightly, blinking his eyes to get a better look at his paintings’ solitary mourner, but when he opened his eyes again, the man was gone.

Sebastian was awoken again after sunrise by the sound of laughter. It broke through the haze of his alcohol and fever-induced stupor. It was high-pitched and familiar. It sounded like heaven and home and the future Sebastian had always dreamed of having, even back in those days when Kurt was dating Blaine and they could barely stand to be around each other. It was all a game back then, and it was a fun game to play…until it wasn’t. Until he realized that he didn’t want to play games any more.

He just wanted Kurt.

Sebastian opened his eyes and rolled his head in search of it, training his eyes back on the house and the patio that he planned to tear out brick by brick by hand as soon as he was physically able. Somewhere in the midst of his pounding headache and the fog that refused to lift he saw piercing blue eyes – blue like the sky in summer – staring back at him from behind a golden hibiscus. It was in that exact spot that Sebastian had planned his painting; the one he had rushed home to start. A painting of Kurt, lounging on a chaise in front of the fireplace with the golden hibiscus behind him, catching the highlights in his hair.

Sebastian sat up too quickly in hopes of seeing who the eyes belonged to, but his head started to swim, his stomach lurched, and before he knew it, he was on his hands and knees, vomiting violently all over the ground.

Sebastian heaved until there was nothing left in him. He looked back at the house with watery eyes but this time he saw nothing. He got a glimpse of himself, black Armani suit stained with dirt and vomit, and knew that if Kurt could see him, he would tear him a new one. So slowly, ever so slowly, and with that thought lodged in his mind, he crawled back to the house on his hands and knees. He still burned with fever, but his head began to clear, and even as small pebbles cut into his hands he continued to crawl, distracting himself by considering his options.

By the time he made it to the patio, his decision seemed pretty clear.

Sebastian didn’t want to live, not without Kurt, and even though he could hear the voices of his family and friends trying to convince himself otherwise, his mind was made up.

He would settle his affairs.

He would make sure his immediate family who always loved him, who always supported him, who loved Kurt like one of their own, was provided for.

He would finish his commissions, complete his obligations.

And when the houses were put up on the market, and all was said and done, he would find the quickest, foolproof, and most surefire way of being reunited with his husband again.


	30. The Muse - Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I lied. This is most likely going to be closer to three chapters. Sue me, it got good :)

Sebastian spent five days fighting his fever, barely able to move, completely unable to keep anything down, and he relished it. It gave him something to think about besides the inevitable. Part of him hoped he wouldn’t get better, and that the illness would do his job for him. Sometimes he slept so deeply, he thought he was dead, but instead of a peaceful eternity spent with Kurt, there was just nothing.

That scared him the most…

…because if there was nothing to return to after death, his Kurt wasn’t just gone in the physical sense. It meant that he no longer existed, and after just seven short years of a life spent together he would never see his beloved husband again.

On the sixth day he had enough. His legs trembled and his insides still threatened to turn him inside out with every step he took, but he didn’t care. It was time to get started.

Sebastian decided not to look at his phone. He wasn’t going to check his texts or messages. He could care less if city hall called with new ideas for his painting. They had paid him in advance They would get what they got from him and like it. So what if they threatened to sue him? He’d like to see them try.

The painting was supposed to be a dramatic landscape view from a hilltop just east of the county where they lived. He had planned to drive up there and map out the land, do some preliminary sketches, gauge his perspective.

 _Fuck that,_ he thought. _I’m just going to wing it._

He and Kurt had driven all over that town in Sebastian’s little red Mustang convertible. He pretty much knew the place by heart. He knew where all the roads led. He knew the dips and curves that passed beneath the oak trees. He knew where the creek crossed the old cow road, and the trails that led up the hillsides.

He and Kurt had made love along most of those roads: in the back seat of his car, parked hidden from view, even lying out on the grass under the sun on one or two more adventurous occasions.

One time in the rain.

Sebastian sighed. He pulled out a canvas and dropped it unceremoniously onto his easel.

This wasn’t going to be his best work.

Far from it, as a matter of fact.

But why put one hundred percent into it? If you’ve seen one stinking landscape you’ve seen them all. As long as it was good enough for the hospitality industry, it would be fine.

Sebastian barely regarded the canvas before he started dropping paint on it, haphazardly in some cases, not even noticing when the grass bled up into the sky too far on one side, or how the hill looked more like a humpbacked snake than a majestic hillside. In his head he could hear Kurt chuckling, that cute way he snorted when laughing got the best of him and he couldn’t stop. Sebastian smirked at the thought of Kurt standing beside him, teasing him; of how he would shut him up by reaching out an acrylic stained hand and threatening his favorite Alexander McQueen.

“Sebastian Smythe!” Kurt would screech. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Try me,” Sebastian would quip, and very soon the painting would be abandoned, Sebastian chasing after Kurt throughout the house, leaping over furniture and dodging wayward canvases along the way. Kurt would race outside, imaging that the open stretch of land would give him the advantage, but he would start stripping off his precious shirt along the way, knowing he would get caught.

Kurt was always more athletic than Sebastian sometimes gave him credit for. Sebastian often wondered if Kurt let him catch up on purpose.

Eventually the chase would lead back into the house, the shirt discarded carefully on an obliging chair, and Sebastian would win – he always won. He’d grab Kurt around the waist, and drag his body back against his, panting and flushed and hot and simply perfect in every way.

Paint would be everywhere by the time they were done making love – sticking to Kurt’s hair where Sebastian had run his fingers through it; long stripes streaking the wood boards where Sebastian had raked his nails along the floor, grabbing for purchase; a rainbow of fingerprints all over Kurt’s pale skin, down his chest where Sebastian traced the outlines of his muscles, around his wrists where Sebastian pinned him down, curling over his hips where Sebastian held him securely against him.

Sebastian stopped daydreaming when he felt the tears prick his eyes and fall. He wiped his eyes on the sleeve of his work shirt, blinking away the memories of an afternoon spent lying in a colorful mess on the floor, Kurt rolling over onto Sebastian’s body to make a masterpiece of his own.

Sebastian looked at his painting, prepared to mock the mess he had made, picturing the travesty of having this worthless piece of shit hanging at city hall, but he stopped…and he stared. His pallet slipped from his hands and crashed to the floor, spattering his shoes and marring the wood.

Gone was the bleeding paint and the humpback snake.

Gone was the mess and the senseless splatter.

At some point during his musings he had fixed the painting. It had changed from monstrosity to memory, a vivid one at that, of the rolling hillside in spring, wildflowers dotting the grass, the sun just a suggestion in the quality of the light and the shadows it threw. If he had been trying for perfection, consciously attempting to make a painting that conveyed the feeling of beauty and the promise of new life, he would never have been able to come close. But the recognition of his own exceptional technique wasn’t what drew his eye; it was the stretch of road in the distance, and on it a candy apple red Mustang rolling through the hillside with its top down, and two passengers inside. Sebastian assumed he was the one driving but the man in the driver’s seat was most definitely Kurt, turning to wave over his shoulder, an overjoyed smile on his face.

He looked so happy; so extremely carefree.

He looked so real.

Sebastian reached out a hand, fingertips hovering over the paint where Kurt’s face looked up at him.

_Honk, honk._

Sebastian jumped at the sound of a car horn in his driveway, but once the surprised subsided, it turned to annoyance. The idea that someone who couldn’t get him by phone had driven all the way out to his house infuriated him.

Sebastian left the painting on its easel and stomped through the house.

_Honk, honk._

“Yeah, yeah, I get it, you stupid motherfucker!” Sebastian screamed. “You’re so important you can’t even get out of your fucking car and ring the Goddamned bell!”

“Come on, Sebastian,” a lyrical voice called. “Hurry up! We’re going to be late!”

Sebastian stopped cold in his tracks. He tried to swallow back the bile that had risen to his mouth at the sound of that voice, but he couldn’t. For long seconds, for what seemed like forever, he couldn’t make himself move.

_Honk, honk._

“Sebastian!”

That was his impetus to move.

“Kurt?” Sebastian breathed, running for the door.

He couldn’t believe he was saying it, like Kurt would actually be there.

He wanted to slap himself for even thinking it was a possibility.

But there he was, racing for the door, hoping against hope of what he would see once he opened it.

_Honk, ho -_

The sound cut off when the door flew open, and for a second – no, what’s less than a second? – Sebastian heard just the hint of a laugh and saw a flash of blue eyes sitting in the passenger seal of his uncovered Mustang.

A Mustang he kept covered 24/7.

Sebastian stood in the doorway, trying to reconcile exactly what he was looking at.

A car. It was just a car. Nothing supernatural or special about it.

Sebastian stepped slowly outside and looked closer at it, examining it in hopes of finding an answer as to why a car he barely drove had been honking on its own, and how a cover that had fit snuggly for most of the year had suddenly blown off.

Sebastian’s eyes searched the drive, the house, and the field beyond, looking for some sign that someone, some stupid neighbor’s kid, had been pulling pranks. He took a moment to cover the Mustang again, hoping that concentrating on something other than the thought of Kurt standing in the driveway honking the horn would stop his hands from shaking.

Sebastian took one final look around before retreating back to the house, double-locking the door behind him, feeling ridiculous when he did. He returned to the painting, to the peaceful hillside and the happy couple in the car driving off into the sunset. A sudden revulsion filled him. It was too much.

He grabbed a small bottle of paint thinner and doused the painting, watching the colors run and drip, the happy couple in their little red car smear down the canvas and disappear. He watched until the beautiful picturesque hillside was reduced to nothing more than a sloppy mess. Then he turned his back on his memories and went back to bed.

***

_“Sebastian! Are you going to wash my back or not?”_

_“Hold up, babe! I’m…uh…doing something…”_

_“What are you…oh, God! Tell me you’re not masturbating again!”_

_“Ha!”_

_“You know, my love, I’m pretty sure you’re going to wear that thing out with over use!”_

_“Never!”_

_“Then what are you…Sebastian! Are you sketching me!? I’m in the shower!”_

_“I know, gorgeous. That’s why I’m sketching you.”_

_“But, I’m naked, Sebastian! And I…wait a minute…it can’t be that big, can it?”_

_“Yup.”_

_“For real?”_

_“Yup.”_

_“Are you…”_

_“Kurt…I just spent an hour with your cock in my mouth. I think I know how big it is.”_

_“Oh…well…continue on, then…”_

Sebastian woke to the sound of his own laughing in his sleep. He felt so light, so happy. He laughed so hard that tears leaked from his eyes and he shook his head as he began to wake. The more conscious of his current surroundings he became, the more aware he was of two things: a strange grainy feeling on his fingertips, and a muted sound of falling water.

Sebastian sighed.

It was raining again.

Sebastian forced his eyes open, curious as to the substance that covered his skin. His sketch pad and a charcoal pencil lay beside him on the bed. Somehow he had been drawing in his sleep. He smirked. It was unusual, but it had happened before. He looked down at the drawing, crudely drawn, but amazingly still one of his best. He blinked some more in an attempt to identify the subject, and even though it shot a cold arrow into his chest he was somehow not surprised.

He had drawn Kurt taking a shower, hands tangling in his hair, steam rising around his body, a small half-smile on his lips at the thought of being watched.

Sebastian loved that smile.

He always got so lost in that smile.

He got lost in it now; so lost that he barely remembered the rain…but not rain he began to realize as the memory started to dissolve and Sebastian’s mind started to wake.

Not the rain…the shower.

And above the thread of the sound of falling water he heard another clear and glorious sound.

The sound of someone humming.

Sebastian bolted from his bed. It had to be real this time. There couldn’t be any doubt. The bathroom was only a few feet away from the bed where he lay. He could hear the water – and the humming – as clear as day. Sebastian raced into the bathroom, the air thick with steam, the mirrors covered in a layer of condensation. His heart leapt as the sound of humming became louder, and then a telltale giggle.

“Sebastian! I…”

Sebastian threw the curtains open and everything stopped.

No water.

The steam gone.

The mirrors clear and dry.

He stood stock still, staring, mouth agape at an empty shower of cream-colored tile.

Sebastian was caught between emotions, a desire to howl in anger welling up in his chest, and the beginning of a complete nervous breakdown.

With a loud growl he tore down the shower curtain, resorting to yelling, feeling it best if he stayed sane a little longer.

He stormed through the bathroom, pulling the mirrors off the wall, tossing bottles left and right, at one point he even punched the tile, cracking the porcelain and cutting his hand.

The sharp stab of pain drew his attention and he stopped. He stared down at his bleeding hand, his chest burning as he fought to slow his breathing. He stood among the wreckage of the master bath and sighed. So much anger. So much useless destruction. None of it was going to bring Kurt back.

Sebastian stumbled out to the kitchen, past the wasted pallet on the floor, past the painting that still dripped acrylic, and made his way to the sink. He turned on the cold water and stuck his hand beneath, head bowed over the silver basin, watching the remains of blood drip away. He felt his eyes drift closed as the stinging water somehow managed to soothe him, and for a moment he could imagine Kurt draping an arm around him, fussing over him, kissing his temples, massaging his neck, telling him everything would be alright.

Sebastian fumbled for the faucet handle with his eyes still closed, and as the water shut off, in the silence, Sebastian heard a sigh that was not his own.

He didn’t want to open his eyes. He wanted Kurt back, but he was done seeing ghosts.

He wanted it all to end.

“Paint it,” he heard a quiet voice say.

When Sebastian opened his eyes, the flash of blue he knew had been there was gone.


	31. The Muse - Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay guys...here's that happy ending I promised you :)

The voice had said, “Paint it.”

Now, Sebastian just had to remember what he wanted to paint.

An ending.

That’s what he had thought right before he heard that silent command.

He wanted it all to end.

So that was the secret, then. He would paint an ending to it all – _his_ ending. How this all plays out, starting with Kurt dying, and then…well, however Sebastian thought to do himself in. He hadn’t really given it any thought.

Sebastian returned to his easel. He tossed the ruined canvas aside and replaced it with a longer one, one with enough room to paint a multiple panel work. He collected up his pallet, not even worrying about the mess of paint on the floor, satisfied enough with the state of the acrylics that were left. He picked up a brush, not particularly concerned with whether it was camel hair or synthetic, medium tip or broad, and held it poised over the swirling sea of tacky paint. He had to choose the color that would tie in the overall theme, which he figured would be relatively easy.

He was painting a triptych of his own death. He would start with black or red.

But when he tried to dip the brush into one of those two colors, he found the brush called somewhere else. He gritted his teeth and tried again with the same frustrating result. He moved to swirl the dry bristles into the red, but the brush was pulled to the blue.

“Fine,” he growled, pulling up a huge dollop of Ultramarine Blue and hurled it at the canvas, letting the paint drop carelessly with an obscene sounding sploitch, watching as the hulking mass crawled down the canvas.

_“Well, that’s mature,” Kurt said, watching as Sebastian put the finishing touches on his latest painting. “I don’t think the gallery is going to want that one.”_

_“I don’t care,” Sebastian returned, not bothering to look at his husband standing by his side. “It makes me feel better.”_

_“A painting of us barbecuing the neighbor’s dog?” Kurt asked, tilting his head to the side to take in the vivid imagery of a smug Sebastian, dressed in a toque and a gingham apron that said “Kiss the Cook” across the front, tongs raised triumphantly, and in its metal grip, the charred leg of Roy and Sylvia Harding’s Airedale Terrier._

_“You know, I would think you would have more sympathy. The motherfucker bit me,” Sebastian griped, indicating his bandaged hand._

_“You bit him back!” Kurt chuckled. “I think that makes you even.”_

_“I don’t,” Sebastian moaned quietly._

_Kurt inched closer to the painting, appreciating quietly all the detail Sebastian had put in – the grain in the wood of the red washed picnic table; the springy hair on the carcass of the dead dog; even Kurt’s own ensemble of capris pants and a tailored Marc Jacobs shirt, with his signature hippo broach attached to the collar._

_Sebastian watched his husband’s eyes as they traveled over the artwork, his lip pinched between his teeth, his brow furrowed in concentration. Kurt turned his head suddenly, blushing at being caught admiring his husband’s handiwork on such a gruesome painting._

_Owing to love, knowledge, and familiarity, added with a dash of the fact that after so many years of sharing the same heart and the same mind they often thought alike, both men moved in at the exact same time for the kiss that seemed to linger in the air waiting for them to experience it._

_Kurt gave a sidelong look at the painting and chuckled when he noticed how close his face was to a screaming and horrified Sylvia Harding, rending her clothes in an expression of her grief._

_“Okay, I’ve got to get away from this thing,” Kurt said. His ducked his head and caught a glimpse of Sebastian’s bandaged hand, a spot of red blossoming on the wrapping._

_“Oh, sweetheart,” he cooed, taking Sebastian’s hand in his and starting to undo the gauze. “We have to rewrap this so it doesn’t get infected.” Kurt tutted disapprovingly. “I wish you would just let me take you to the hospital.”_

_“Why?” Sebastian asked, putting down his pallet and wrapping an arm around Kurt’s waist, pulling him close, “When I’ve got you here to play nurse?”_

_Sebastian wiggled his eyebrows suggestively while Kurt pulled a face of mock horror._

_“Come on, Kurt,” Sebastian whispered. “I think I need to undress so you can take my vitals.”_

_Kurt threw his head back and laughed. Then he kissed Sebastian on the mouth, chuckling when his husband released him to undo the buttons of his shirt one-handed._

_“You know,” Kurt chuckled against Sebastian’s lips, “it really is an excellent painting.”_

Sebastian stepped back to view his work, but once again what had started out as one thing changed into another. He had painted several paintings within a painting – an image of Sebastian standing and staring at a painting with Kurt by his side, staring at a painting of Sebastian staring at the same painting with Kurt by his side, standing and staring at the same painting on and on for infinity. In the painting, Sebastian wore the same clothes he did now, his hair sticking up at all angles, his pallet dangling from his hand with the paint swirled together in a blotchy mess. Sebastian regarded the painting closely, his heart suddenly racing. If Kurt was standing just a bit behind him and to the right in all these paintings, could that possible mean…

Sebastian jumped at the feeling of a hand on his shoulder. He turned just as a face closed in on his; cool, soft lips pressing gently against his mouth. Sebastian’s heart stopped when the face pulled away and Sebastian caught sight of those blue eyes that he missed more with every passing day.

Kurt was perfect, his ethereal beauty completely intact, just as Sebastian remembered. Kurt smiled, a brief hint of sorrow shifting his features.

“It really is an excellent painting,” he said, motioning to the artwork with a nod of his chin.

Sebastian looked back at the image, the two of them together, stretching on into the future for what seemed like an eternity, and Sebastian smiled. He turned back to Kurt, excited to impart what might just be a revelation…but Kurt was gone.

Sebastian spent the next three days at his easel. He barely ate, he didn’t sleep. All he did was paint. He started back from the beginning, when he and Kurt first met, petty high school students bickering over the same boy. Sebastian painted the way Kurt’s eyes met his, and the smug grin that spread like wildfire over his own features when he thought ruffling his feathers by stealing his pretty boyfriend would be so much fun.

He painted a young Kurt performing at Regionals, and those say something hips that never failed to capture Sebastian’s imagination.

He painted the phone call they shared after Blaine cheated on Kurt, Kurt on one side of the country and Sebastian on the other. He painted every phone call after, on a large wall-sized canvas in multiple panels, changing their features as each other changed and grew, and on their respective ring fingers, faint at first but becoming darker as time passed by and they fell in love, a single red thread that connected them, one to the other.

During the course of the next few days, Sebastian went through all of his acrylics, and had to call in a favor to another local artist to get more. While he waited for his shipment to arrive, he sketched. He went through sketch pad after sketch pad, finally resorting to paper from his printer, and after that, recycled newspapers. He painted and sketched their entire life together, and when he was done, when the final painting was set aside to dry, he waited for something to happen. Anything. A voice. A giggle.

Another kiss.

Sebastian climbed into bed, his muscles sore and aching, his eyes crossed from exhaustion. He fell asleep waiting, and awoke the next morning to the sun warming his face, his skin and clothes thoroughly stained, and his husband nowhere to be seen.

He felt like a fool. He had made it all up in his mind. He had indulged in this fantasy for far too long, missed his deadline, and pushed aside his plans.

Well, not any more.

Sebastian knew what he needed to do. He had a bottle of Xanax, a bottle of Halcion, and two bottles of vodka.

With any luck, it would be quick and easy and painless.

He stumbled into the living room, littered literally from floor to ceiling with pictures of Kurt, paintings of Kurt, charcoal sketches on every possible surface, moving to the walls when he ran out of paper and his replacement paints and canvases had not yet arrived. There were so many images of Kurt throughout the room that Sebastian almost missed him, wandering through the paintings, fingers hovering over the drawings, tracing over the outlines of his own face. Sebastian stopped just inches from him on his way to the kitchen, but stopped short at the intense look in his shimmering blue eyes.

Kurt still looked ethereal, but he also looked real.

“They’re beautiful,” Kurt gasped, looking around him in awe. “Every single one is just beautiful.”

Sebastian felt himself choke. This had to be a dream, because the reality was too fantastic to believe. But Kurt’s eyes looked sad, and Sebastian didn’t understand why.

“Are you really here?” Sebastian asked. “Or are you just going to haunt me forever?”

“Do you want me to?” Kurt asked, eyebrow quirked as he waited patiently for an answer.

Sebastian nodded even before an answer could make its way past his lips.

“I want you here,” Sebastian said. “I need you, Kurt. I need you. I need you to come back to me.”

Kurt turned and looked at the paintings, looked at the drawings and smiled.

“You painted my past, Sebastian,” Kurt said, reaching out with trembling fingers to brush across the image of Kurt and Sebastian together, locked in an embrace, eyes closed as they kissed, caught up in their own little world as parents with children and park vendors raced by, eager to get out of the sudden torrential downpour. Even Sebastian had to admit that it looked so real, he could almost see the people move, the children struggling to be free, the way Kurt’s lips moved against his.

It was one of his greatest masterpieces.

It was an epic kiss.

Their first kiss.

“Paint my future,” Kurt explained, his image already beginning to fade, “and you can have me.”

Sebastian shook his head, exhaustion and desperation turning to anger. He had painted for three days straight just to have Kurt, and now here he was, disappearing again because he hadn’t done enough.

“No,” Sebastian said stubbornly. “Do you know what you’ve already put me through?”

Sebastian was screaming, even though he really didn’t mean to. He was lost and lonely, and felt like he was going crazy. He was standing in the center of what could easily be labeled the creepiest memorial to his dead husband ever, arguing with a ghost. But none of that mattered, because Sebastian was tired of waiting; tired of being tested and taunted. He had a future planned for him and Kurt, and he was ready to get back to it.

“You’re here now, and all I want is you. I don’t care if I never paint again. I don’t _want_ to paint. All I want is you.”

Kurt shook his head, backing away, his body becoming more and more faint with every step.

Sebastian panicked. He rushed over to Kurt with purpose and determination set in his blood-shot green eyes, jaw clenched, ready to claim back his life and his husband, but just as Sebastian reached Kurt, he dissolved before Sebastian’s eyes. Sebastian stood alone in the mid-morning air, listening as the rest of the world sprang to life outside – birds singing, insects chirping - not realizing that for the moment Kurt was there everything had been quiet, like time had stopped. But now it marched back on with absolutely no concern at all for Sebastian’s frustration and pain.

“Fine,” Sebastian said, a scowl darkening his features. “If that’s the way you’re going to be about it, princess, then we’ll play this game your way.”

Sebastian put a blank canvas on his easel and grabbed a different pallet. This pallet contained various bright oils – a medium he wasn’t all too fond of, but he didn’t want to waste time rummaging through his acrylics for the colors he needed when this one was so readily available. Besides, Sebastian considered oils a bitch to work with. It seemed only fitting.

Sebastian didn’t even take a moment to regard the canvas, to try and search out the painting hiding within. He knew what he wanted. He wanted Kurt, in his bed, gloriously naked and panting with want, skin flushed with desire, writhing against the sheets as he dreamed of Sebastian joining him beneath the covers and relieving him of his agony.

Sebastian attacked the canvas, and not just with a brush. He moved through the paint with his fingers as he defined the muscular lines of Kurt’s arms. He cut through the oil with his pallet knife, giving depth and dimension to the comforter on the bed. He touched and sliced, moved and manipulated, the colors blending till what he had once intended to be a simple portrait of his husband lying in bed became the culmination of all his passions, bleeding through his pores, coursing from his fingertips, burning in his eyes. Unlike his other paintings which sometimes took a matter of hours, this one he worked on all day. He never noticed when the sun began to sink into the horizon, and the room became dark. He knew Kurt’s body so well he could paint it with his eyes closed.

And the image was perfect – Kurt’s alabaster skin glowing against a frame of red satin sheets, plump lips parted, hooded eyes searching, his arm outstretched, pointing to where Sebastian stood beside his masterpiece.

Sebastian stared at the painting, and the more he looked, the more he could swear that Kurt’s image was actually breathing.

Sebastian set his pallet down and ran a grimy hand through his hair, spreading paint along with it over the chocolate-colored strands. He was worn out…breathless…almost completely spent, but one word from Kurt, his beautiful Kurt, would have sent him running to their bed.

If Kurt were really there.

If Kurt was still alive.

He touched the frame of the canvas just as a breeze spiraled through the room, carrying with it the most incredible sound.

“Sebastian,” a voice called to him. “Sebastian, when are you coming to bed?”

Sebastian wasn’t breathing. He couldn’t. A single noise, a single move, and the voice on the wind might be scared away.

But he needed to know.

“K-Kurt?” Sebastian stammered, sure that only the silence of the house would answer him.

“Sebastian,” the voice, so light, so fair, so enticing and heartbreaking and miraculous answered instead. “Please, stop painting and come to bed. You have all day to paint. We only have the night to spend together.”

Sebastian backed away from the painting, reverently gazing at it, expecting it to do something other-worldly…or maybe just disappear. But it didn’t. The painting remained, and so did Kurt.

“Sebastian Smythe! I am going to count to five and if I…”

Sebastian made it to him in three seconds, and that night, while making love to the man he thought he’d never see again, he realized something so incredible, he felt no reason to try and explain it.

He could spend the rest of his life with his husband, as long as he painted it that way.

***

“Oh, Sebastian!” Kurt whispered, clutching tightly to his husband’s arm. “They’re gorgeous! Every single one of them is your best work.”

Sebastian tried his hardest to make Kurt as inconspicuous as possible so he could accompany his husband to the gallery and see the new artwork first hand, hung and lighted, on display for a new public of inspired enthusiasts. Kurt was dressed in head to toe black, a gorgeous Vivienne Westwood inspired suit of Sebastian’s design, his head covered in a stylish Asian-inspired silk scarf, and large Jackie O sunglasses obscuring his face. They stayed huddled close together, appearing like a normal couple to anyone who saw them. Speculation circulated quickly that Sebastian Smythe had found himself a new muse.

“You just say that because you’re in every single one of them,” Sebastian smirked.

Kurt bobbed his head from side to side as he thought.

“True, true. I do lend a certain…how do you say…sophistication to your art. I won’t lie.”

Sebastian laughed.

Sebastian walked Kurt from painting to painting, stopping long enough to examine each and every intricate detail of the individual pieces.

“How many are there?” Kurt asked, his voice exuding a healthy dose of wonder.

“Right now…about one-hundred and fifty.”

Kurt snapped his head up to look into his husband’s smug face, jaw dropped in disbelief.

“One-hundred and fifty?” Kurt smiled “That’s almost five months we get to spend together.”

“Try two and a half years,” Sebastian corrected, preening with delight at the wide-eyed stare his revelation earned him.

“Two and a half...” Kurt repeated. “But…but how?”

Sebastian escorted Kurt through a set of double doors to a large room whose walls were painted white to better display the art. The huge room held easily eighteen wall sized murals, each with a multitude of different panels depicting Sebastian and Kurt vacationing in Paris, sitting in a gondola on the water, exploring the Grand Canyon, or just ‘living’ – washing dishes, walking a dog, shopping at the supermarket…and quite a few of them making love.

Kurt was quiet – for a long time standing and staring at the next few years of his life as Sebastian had planned them, and for a moment, Sebastian started to doubt that this was what Kurt really wanted.

“Kurt?” Sebastian felt an unnerving weight settle in his chest. He didn’t want to lose Kurt. Not again. “Kurt? For the love of God, Kurt! Tell me…”

“I love them,” Kurt sniffled, turning and throwing himself into Sebastian’s arms. “I love it…all of it. Our life together. It’s beautiful.”

“You really like it?” Sebastian asked, a little overwhelmed by Kurt in his arms in a gallery surrounded by images of their future.

“I do,” Kurt replied. Sebastian wasn’t done holding him, but Kurt recovered quickly and pulled away, leading Sebastian farther in the room to examine those paintings as well.

“But, now we have to start planning farther ahead,” Kurt insisted. “I mean, where are the paintings of me sewing and designing? I fully intend on working…”

“What?” Sebastian looked dumbfounded. “How do you…”

“We’ll cross that bridge later,” Kurt said, dismissing Sebastian’s objection with the wave of his hand. “And if you get a dog, I want a cat. And I expect you to make me age gracefully…no premature balding or pot belly. I mean, you’ve seen my dad.”

Sebastian rolled his eyes, but he listened carefully, setting all of Kurt’s notes to memory.

“Of course, gorgeous,” Sebastian said, placing a kiss to the top of Kurt’s head, over the scarf, wishing it was Kurt’s beautiful, walnut-colored hair tickling his nose with its sweet scent of jasmine and vanilla. “But, what would you like to do now? The show doesn’t open till tomorrow. We have the whole day.”

Kurt looked around at the paintings on the walls and his lips curled into a devilish grin. He walked toward the wall to a painting in muted, neutral shades of the two of them in bed, Sebastian hovering over Kurt’s body, looking down at Kurt with lust blown eyes, occasional highlights of black and red suggesting exactly what moment of desire the painting portrayed.

“This one.” Kurt’s voice turned dark and silky, a wash of subtle seduction that made Sebastian burn to take his husband right there, right then. “I want this one.”

“You just want to fuck,” Sebastian teased, taking Kurt’s arm.

Kurt’s eyes twinkled as he pulled Sebastian to the door.

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Kurt said, biting his lower lip, giving Sebastian the perfect inspiration for his next painting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to write a little note at the end to clear up any confusion. I have had a lot of positive comments about this fic (thank you all by the way), but some people have been a little confused. Kurt wasn't just Sebastian's husband; he was also his muse. Kurt died, but as Sebastian's muse, as long as Sebastian creates works of art for Kurt, Kurt continues to live for Sebastian. That's why Sebastian painting Kurt's past didn't work. Sebastian needed to build him a future. I hope this clears things up a little bit. (So, no, Sebastian wasn't crazy :) Well, no more than artist's normally are. )


	32. Fix You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Using the trope Kurt!skank. Sebastian is taking Kurt to meet his parents for the first time, but first he has to make Kurt presentable. (Rated NC17)

Kurt hears Sebastian’s Porsche pull up to the football field, knowing it’s him before he even has to turn to see it. He takes one long last drag on his cigarette before pitching it into the grass and stomping it out, waving frantically to clear away the smoke. Sebastian is particular about the smell of smoke clinging to his precious prep school uniform, and even though Kurt despises all of Sebastian’s petty rules, he’s not in the mood to argue.

Kurt doesn’t get too many opportunities to see Sebastian, and even if he hates to admit it, he misses him.

Kurt watches Sebastian strut across the parking lot on his way to the bleachers, flawlessly styled hair catching highlights from the afternoon sun, piercing green eyes reflecting his smug smirk, perfectly pressed Dalton blazer hugging his broad shoulders and accentuating his trim waist. How anyone can manage to make that stuffy suit look so good, Kurt will never understand. Sebastian definitely thinks he’s God’s gift. At least Kurt knows first-hand that the best parts are hidden underneath, and for now, Kurt gets to keep those all to himself.

Sebastian winks at a Cheerio as he saunters by, and the blonde tart practically faints in the arms of her friend beside her, sighing dramatically. Kurt’s eyes narrow as he sets the girl in his sights and memorizes her face. He’s going to have a talk with her later about keeping her eyes to herself. For now, Kurt fidgets, ridiculously adjusting his torn jeans and brushing off the shoulders of his musty leather jacket, carding his fingers quickly through his carefully mussed pink-tinted locks, preparing for the moment when Sebastian rounds the corner to the bleachers and says…

“Hello, gorgeous.”

Sebastian advances on Kurt, picks him up roughly, latches a hand to his ass, and kisses him hard.

Kurt squeaks a bit at the bite to his lower lip, but all too soon, Sebastian drops him back to the grass, spitting off to the side, his nose scrunched with disgust.

“If you insist on smoking those shit cigarettes, could you at least do it an hour before I show up?”

“An hour ago I was in Calc,” Kurt argues, his face red from the rush of adrenaline at being kissed and the humiliation of being reprimanded.

“Then try an Altoid, for Christ’s sake.” Sebastian reaches into his pocket, pulls out a small red and white tin of the strong mints and tosses them Kurt’s way. Kurt catches them with one hand, and as reluctant as he is to kowtow to any demand of Smythe’s, he knows that if he doesn’t, Sebastian won’t kiss him.

And Kurt wants to be kissed.

Kurt takes one and sticks it in his mouth, trying not to pull a face at the burn on his tongue. Sebastian stares at him with a significant look until Kurt takes two more. Pleased with his obedience, Sebastian puts an arm around his boyfriend and pulls him close, nuzzling into his neck.

“So, today’s the day,” Sebastian coos. “The ‘rents want to meet you, so we need to get you ready.”

Kurt chokes on his mints.

“What? Now!?” Kurt coughs out, pounding on his chest with his fist to move the mint shards along.

“Well, tonight,” Sebastian clarifies. “You’ve been invited to dinner at the club.”

Sebastian pulls away from Kurt, giving him a once over with disapproving eyes, tutting and shaking his head.

“Nope,” Sebastian says finally. “This simply will not do.”

“Fuck you,” Kurt spits, pulling out of Sebastian’s grasp. “My clothes are just fine, fucktard. You seem to like them.”

“Yeah, well, that’s because I can get you out of them,” Sebastian drawls, looping a finger around Kurt’s studded belt and pulling him back against his body. Sebastian ruts slowly along the seam of Kurt’s jeans, pressing his erection against the crack of Kurt’s ass, and despite his diminishing self-esteem, he can’t resist pushing back to meet him. “But the fact remains, I can’t take you home looking like a skank.” Sebastian says it so matter-of-factly, with added emphasis to the word ‘skank’, that it makes Kurt’s skin crawl. He always thought Sebastian liked him just fine the way he was - pink hair, cigarettes and all.

Apparently, that’s not the case.

“I do have a reputation to uphold.”

“You’re an ass,” Kurt scowls, reaching in his pocket for another cigarette, Sebastian’s rules about smoke smells on his clothes be damned.

“You love my ass,” Sebastian purrs, pulling the cigarette from between Kurt’s lips and tossing it to the grass before he can light it, “and you want my ass, so you’re going to do what I say. Isn’t that right, Hummel?”

Kurt sighs. He would like to believe that after two years Sebastian would realize it’s more than his ass that Kurt’s after, but he’ll take what he can get.

“Fine,” Kurt barks. “What do you want me to do?”

“We have an appointment.” Sebastian throws his arm over Kurt’s shoulders, leading him away from the bleachers. “And if we don’t leave now, we’re going to be late.”

“An appointment where?” Kurt’s raises a skeptical eyebrow as Sebastian walks him to the Porsche, which is currently being gawked at by about a dozen or so jocks and cheerleaders.

“The club has a stylist,” Sebastian says, shooing away the crowd with a disgruntled glare, “and a tailor on call. I think four hours is enough time to turn you into something resembling a silk purse.”

Sebastian doesn’t open the car door for Kurt, just waves at him impatiently. Kurt pulls on the handle and drops down into the leather seat, stares of disbelief following him as he shuts the door and puts on his seatbelt. Sebastian reaches past Kurt into the glove box and pulls out a small aerosol bottle, spraying the air around Kurt with something that smells vaguely like sterile lilacs.

“There,” Sebastian grumbles, turning on the air and aiming a vent right at Kurt. “That will make the hours fly by.”

Kurt rolls his eyes and sinks into the seat, praying for a four car pile-up on the freeway, just to piss Sebastian off.

 

The stylist at the club is even more disapproving of Kurt’s looks, if such a thing could be believed. The moment they step into the salon, she sighs audibly, making no effort to hide her despair. Sebastian deposits him into a chair, slips the haggard woman something that looks suspiciously like a hundred dollar bill, and disappears out the door with barely a wave in Kurt’s direction. Kurt bites his tongue for the next few hours as a team of hairdressers, tailors, and manicurists swarm over him. The pink in his hair (courtesy of a gallon bottle of cranberry Ocean Spray) is stripped, his naturally chestnut-colored locks highlighted, and his coif recut. His nails are filed, the black polish removed, and some petite brunette bitch with an orange stick pushes back his cuticles, torturing him until he is tempted to punch her in the face.

He’s shoved into a black suit and matching tie – simple, stylish, and extremely expensive - something he can appreciate but would probably never wear. Polished patent-leather shoes replace his Doc Marten boots, and the ensemble is complete.

The haggard woman removes his piercings - seven from his left ear and nine from his right - but a sympathetic stylist with a slightly edgier look sneaks in unnoticed and replaces a single diamond stud, giving him a conspiratorial wink before dissolving back into the crowd. Kurt has never owned a diamond stud before, so he can’t imagine where it came from, but he’s not going to turn any random gift-giving angels down, especially since this one tiny trinket is the only thing on his body that makes him still feel real, still feel like Kurt.

Kurt looks at his reflection in the mirror and sighs in defeat. A much younger looking Kurt stares back at him, definitely much more dignified, certainly more refined, but so far from the real him that he doesn’t even know who he’s looking at anymore. His eyes dart to the old hag who did this to him, sure that at the very least she will be pleased with his appearance, but she only sighs as well, mumbling, “If he’d given me more time,” and “well, it will have to do,” and worst of all, “better give me more than an extra hundred next time.”

 _Next time?_ Kurt’s mind howls. _There’s going to be a next time?_

Kurt steps out of the salon, stumbling in the unfamiliar shoes, and is immediately greeted by a low, appreciative whistle.

“Now that’s what I’m talking about,” Sebastian says. “Looking good, Hummel. Now that’s a look I can get behind.”

Kurt wants to preen under Sebastian’s praise, but instead his heart sinks in his stomach like a stone.

This is what Sebastian wants. Bye-bye Kurt Hummel. Hello Sebastian’s primped pet.

Sebastian circles Kurt, taking in the new look from all angles, stopping to flick the stud in his ear with his finger.

“Very dapper,” he comments with a strange knowing glimmer in his eye. Kurt’s heart lightens knowing that the earring is from him.

“I guess,” Kurt says, disgusted at his own meek voice, “if you like it.”

“But do _you_ like it?” Sebastian asks. Kurt hates Sebastian for teasing him, especially at a time like this, but when his eyes meet Sebastian’s, he doesn’t see his usual cocky swagger. His green eyes are soft and genuine, like he might actually care how Kurt feels.

Kurt is so thrown by this rarely seen side of Sebastian Smythe, he doesn’t answer right away.

Sebastian shakes his head and answers for him.

“You don’t have to say anything,” Sebastian says. “I know you hate it. I can see it in your eyes.”

“I don’t _hate_ it,” Kurt says finally, “and I wouldn’t have minded so much if you’d asked me, to make a change this once. I just…”

Kurt’s words drift away but Sebastian is not willing to let it die. He leans in close.

“Just what, Kurt?” he asks.

“I just want to know that you like me the way I am.” Kurt looks into Sebastian’s eyes. “I thought you did. You used to.”

Sebastian smiles, rolling his eyes and trying to look put-out by Kurt’s cluelessness, but manages to look more chagrined instead.

“I do like you the way you are,” Sebastian says, kissing Kurt on the forehead. “Can you forgive me for being an ass?”

“I’ll forgive you,” Kurt says, “but I don’t see that changing any time soon.”

Sebastian smacks Kurt on the rear in full view of passersby and smirks at the disapproving looks he earns.

“Fine,” Sebastian says. “Do you want to change?”

Kurt’s head snaps up to meet Sebastian’s, eyes wide with disbelief.

“You’d be okay with that?” Kurt asks. “You’d be okay with me putting on my ripped jeans and my old t-shirt to meet your parents?”

“Yup,” Sebastian says, “if it makes you happy.”

Kurt looks up at the ceiling, affecting a look of deep thought. He pulls out of Sebastian’s arms to look down at his suit.

“You know what,” Kurt says, “I think I’m good. I’m not so far removed from my days of thumbing through Vogue that I can’t appreciate a classic black Armani suit.”

“Are you sure?” Sebastian asks. “You don’t have to do this for me, you know.”

“I know that now,” Kurt answers brightly. “But deep inside me, I think, is a man who likes to wear a suit.”

Sebastian laughs – the sound surprisingly warm and comforting.

“And,” Kurt adds, turning his head to show off his bedazzled ear, “I think diamonds suit me.”

“Well, it’s all yours,” Sebastian says, chuckling again when Kurt smiles wide. “Consider it a thank you for going through all this shit.”

“You know,” Kurt says coyly, crowding back into his boyfriend’s arms, “if you keep this up, people are going to think that you ‘more than’ like me.”

Sebastian takes a quick peek around and Kurt becomes disheartened, wondering who Sebastian is worried about seeing them. Sebastian darts away quickly, but before Kurt has a chance to consider the implications, he returns, slipping something thick and heavy over Kurt’s shoulders. Kurt reaches up to grab at the weight, his fingers coming in contact with the collar of his leather jacket.

“I think, Kurt Hummel, I might just ‘more than’ like you.”

Sebastian shakes his head, taking his stunned boyfriend’s arm, and leading him away.

 

 

 


	33. May I Take Your Order?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the anon prompt "Kurt and Sebastian, after Sebastians college friends hit on/bullied Kurt while he worked at the spotlight diner?? :)" I based some of my finer details on the diner that the Spotlight diner is based off of, Ellen’s Stardust Diner. Their singing wait staff are called Stardusters, so I called mine Spotlighters. The menu items I took from there, too.

“So does the Ahi Tuna Burger have any fish in it?” the annoying blond man says with a smirk, “because, you know, I’m allergic to fish.”

Kurt sighs, putting a hand to his forehead and fighting to curb his exasperation while the four fuckwads seated at table six in his section snicker like they are in the presence of comedy gold. In reality, all they have managed to do is waste twenty minutes questioning Kurt in detail about every item on the menu. Kurt wonders for a second just how much trouble he would get in with Gunther if he says, “No…no fish at all in the Ahi Tuna Burger”, lets this guy order it, and stands by to watch him die of anaphylactic shock. But in the name of staying out of jail and paying his NYADA tuition, he reconsiders.

“Well,” Kurt says slowly, talking as if to a particularly stupid and ugly child, “Ahi Tuna happens to be a fish, so if you’re allergic to fish, I would recommend you don’t order it.” Then, after a quick stroke of genius, he adds, “And seeing as we serve other menu items with fish in them, you may want to consider going to another restaurant…you know, for the sake of your health.”

The four men hoot and holler obnoxiously as they catch on to Kurt’s ploy.

“Aww, you’re not trying to get rid of us, are you, princess?” This comment comes from another man, a muscular brunette with striking blue eyes and a crooked, roguish smile. Kurt might consider him handsome if he could learn to stop talking. Regardless of how good looking he is though, Kurt bristles at the nickname and the myriad of bad memories it conjures.

“Not trying,” Kurt says with a plastered on grin. _‘Failing,’_ he thinks regretfully. “Look, should I give you gentlemen a little more time?”

 _‘Please say yes,’_ Kurt chants in his head. _‘Please say yes, please say yes…’_

If he can get away from this table for a second, he can ‘take an intermission’ and step out back for a cleansing breath of cold air before coming back in to face these assholes again.

“No, no, I think we know what we want…” A third man with carefully mussed, sandy brown hair and eyes to match replies. He has obvious streaks tracing along his hairline from a poorly applied at-home spray tan. He takes Kurt in slowly from head to toe with a strange, hungry look in his eye. Kurt feels a mixture of revulsion and fear. His gaydar didn’t particularly ping in the red when he passed by this table, so Kurt isn’t exactly sure what this man’s game is.

“Fine,” Kurt says, holding his pen poised over his notepad and staring back at the men expectantly.

The fourth man glances over Kurt’s shoulder in the direction of the door and his face brightens instantly.

“Oh yeah!” he yells. “Now the party can begin! The man is finally here!”

Kurt rolls his eyes and turns to face the newcomer, not wanting to be caught off-guard when the mystery miscreant joins the group. Kurt’s steely eyes widen in shock as they lock with a familiar green-eyed stare.

 _‘What in gay hell?’_ Kurt moans quietly, wondering if the night can get any worse.

Sebastian’s slowly burning smirk is all Kurt needs to see to know that he recognizes Kurt right away, even after two years.

“Well, well, well,” Sebastian purrs, shrugging his overcoat from his shoulders, “Who do we have here?” He slides into the booth with his friends. “You know, I always knew you would end up wearing an apron and serving me.”

Kurt scoffs at the obvious insinuation, but manages to stay composed.

 _‘And now the hyenas have their leader,’_ Kurt thinks, as the four other men snigger ridiculously at Sebastian’s lame jab.

Kurt represses the thousands of snide comments that spring to mind. He needs this job, and Gunther isn’t a particularly discerning boss. He would likely fire Kurt for much less than making a sarcastic remark to a customer…or tossing a glass of water in his face. He just has to make it through this one order and then he’s off for the evening. But to be honest, he’s not looking forward to that either. Another lonely night of eating cheesecake and watching _Moulin Rouge_ with Rachel and Santana.

Suddenly, verbally sparring with Sebastian didn’t seem like such a bad way to blow some time.

“Well, why don’t I give you guys another minute so your friend here can figure out what he wants.” Kurt hands Sebastian a menu. He catches Sebastian’s green eyes and startles slightly. The look in those usually mocking eyes is different, softer, almost apologetic…but only for a second before the leer returns.

“Oh, I know what I want.”

Kurt rolls his eyes, surprised when Sebastian laughs in a way that doesn’t sound taunting or cruel. When Kurt looks back, Sebastian is blushing…honest to goodness blushing, and the slight tint of color in his cheeks accompanied by the sound of that genuine laugh makes something warm pool in the pit of Kurt’s stomach.

Kurt is even more surprised that his first instinct isn’t to just shove it away.

It’s been two years. Maybe Sebastian Smythe has changed.

Blaine sure as hell did.

Kurt sighs as the image of his ex-fiance makes a sudden and unwelcome intrusion in his thoughts.

“Aren’t you going to ask me?”

Sebastian’s smooth voice interrupts and brings Kurt back to the present. He shakes his head, realizing that Sebastian had been waiting while Kurt got caught up in his momentary daydream.

“Ask you what?” Kurt asks, sparing a glance at the amused eyes of the pack staring at him, grinning, but not in a good-natured or kind way…not like Sebastian.

“What I want to order?” Sebastian says slowly. “I said I knew what I wanted.”

“Right.” Kurt tries to recover. “What would you like?”

Sebastian opens his mouth, but seems at the last second to change his mind.

“What do you recommend for dinner?” Sebastian asks. The question takes Kurt off-guard. It seems to Kurt that it’s more than a simple inquiry. It sounds more like an invitation.

Kurt has a standby response for such a question. Gunther always tells them to recommend whatever is the most expensive, and that’s the Walter Cronkite (kobe style lean waygu beef), but that doesn’t seem like a good enough answer.

“I recommend the Terrine Board,” Kurt says, slightly hushed. Sebastian’s eyes widen. He actually looks impressed, and for some reason that makes Kurt giddy with pride.

“Really?” Sebastian asks. “They serve a Terrine Board here?”

“No,” Kurt says quickly. Sebastian’s confused eyes snap up to meet his. “They have an excellent one at The Breslin though. On 16th West?” Kurt leans in a little closer so as not to be heard by the passing wait staff. “The food here is pretty awful.”

Sebastian laughs, and Kurt feels his own cheeks glow red this time.

He’s flirting. Kurt’s actually flirting. And with Sebastian Smythe of all people.

But the strangest thing of all is it actually feels nice.

“Kurt!” Santana’s voice carries through the din of the diners, the clink of silverware, and the singing of other ‘Spotlighters’ at a nearby table wishing some poor, cowering teenage boy a happy birthday. Kurt looks up and notices her waving him away.

“Excuse me one moment,” Kurt says, addressing the whole table but talking only to Sebastian.

Kurt turns, only vaguely registering a whispered, “Watch this” and the chuckle that follows before he feels a heavy hand smack him hard on the ass. Kurt spins back, stunned, in time to see the four men explode with laughter. He stumbles in front of another waiter carrying a tray of food, unable to stop himself before they collide, and the contents of the tray – two milkshakes (one strawberry and one chocolate), a plate of nachos, an order of fries and a Be Bop A Lula Burger -  come crashing down on Kurt’s head.

That’s when the uproar begins. Ice-cream drips down Kurt’s forehead and into his eyes, so he doesn’t witness the actual commotion. Familiar hands grab him by the arms and help him to his feet. Sobba (the waiter whose tray of food is currently staining Kurt’s clothes) apologizes profusely, while Rachel leads him away, but above the sound of ‘I’m so sorry, Kurt! I didn’t see you!’, and Rachel’s nonstop fussing, he hears Sebastian screaming furiously.

“What the fuck is your damage, asshole!?” is the last thing Kurt hears before Rachel ushers him into the bathroom and locks the door.

Dani takes over Kurt’s tables while Kurt hides in the bathroom till the end of his shift, his head crowded by too many memories of Slushies to the face for his taste. Luckily, the employees have their own restroom with a shower, so he doesn’t have to resort to a whore’s bath in the sink, and as he doesn’t like walking home smelling like chili cheese fries, he also has a change of clothes. Rachel tells him when the rush has died down so that he can leave with his dignity intact, but he can’t help noticing a happy little glimmer in her eye as she leaves. Kurt sighs, not looking forward to the days of teasing that little glimmer represents.

Kurt wanders back out to the dining room, his eyes darting nervously towards table six, just to make sure Sebastian and his pack have cleared out. Kurt stops short when he sees the pack is gone…but Sebastian is still sitting at the booth, hands clasped in front of him, and does he look nervous? He must feel Kurt staring at him because his head pops up and looks straight at Kurt, a sheepish smile on his face. Curious, Kurt makes his way over to the table.

“What are you still doing here?” Kurt asks quietly.

“I…I wanted to make sure you were okay,” Sebastian starts, without a hint of his trademark snark or cynicism tainting the concern in his voice.

“Oh,” is all Kurt can think to say. “Where are your friends?” he adds, not wanting the silence to become too awkward.

“Funny thing,” Sebastian says, standing from the table, “they all ordered the most expensive thing on the menu, and then took it to go.”

Kurt shakes his head and laughs.

“That…that is strange,” Kurt supplies, looking down at his shoes, worrying the now spotless floor with the toe of his Docs.

“Yeah,” Sebastian agrees. “But I got a good look at the receipt, and it seems they were nice enough to leave you a pretty generous tip.”

Kurt bites his lip. He can’t seem to stop the grin that spreads without his permission.

“Thanks,” Kurt says, glancing up at Sebastian through long, brown lashes.

“Who says I had anything to do with it, babe?” Sebastian remarks, but it’s not biting. Kurt realizes that Sebastian probably doesn’t say things like “thank you” and “you’re welcome” very often, so this is the best Kurt’s going to get.

Kurt nods, offering Sebastian a small wave as he quietly heads toward the door. A hand stops Kurt just before he reaches it, and Kurt looks down in astonishment at the fingers now wrapped around his arm.

“Hey, have you eaten yet?” Sebastian says quickly. Kurt knows he’s trying to sound nonchalant, but in the time Kurt’s known him, he’s never heard that strange, nervous tone in his voice before. “Because I haven’t,” Sebastian continues, “and I would just have something here, but I hear from a reliable source that the food sucks.”

Kurt sputters, trying not to let on that he said that in case Gunther is stalking somewhere, listening.

“Uh, no…” Kurt says, “I haven’t eaten yet. Did you have anything particular in mind?”

“Well…” Sebastian opens the door with his free hand and ushers Kurt outside. Kurt eyes, with a quizzical look, the hand that still holds his arm. “I’ve heard that The Breslin has a wonderful Terrine Board. I thought I might try it out, especially since…” Sebastian sneaks a hand into his pocket and pulls out a blue American Express card, “it’s on Dan tonight.”

Kurt doesn’t ask, but he deduces that Dan was the fucktard that smacked him on the ass.

“Ah,” Kurt says, nodding in understanding, “so you stole your friend’s credit card.”

“Not that much of a friend,” Sebastian says, “and I didn’t steal it. He offered.”

Kurt isn’t all too convinced, and his expression must show it.

“He did!” Sebastian says in his defense. “But…” Sebastian leans in a little closer, talking quietly into Kurt’s ear, “I’d be more than willing to pay if you wanted to consider this a date.”

Sebastian offers Kurt his arm with a slight, gentlemanly bow.

Kurt can’t help it when his heart stutters at the sight. He can’t think of anything to say that won’t sound trite, condescending, or downright stupid, so he simply weaves his arm through Sebastian’s and smiles, leading him away.


	34. A Tale of Angst and Purple Spandex

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the anon prompt “Seb with body issues”. Sebastian is helping Kurt by playing model for a rather interesting outfit that reveals more than Sebastian’s figure. (Future fic, hurt/comfort, humor)

Kurt tapped his foot, compulsively glancing at the face of his watch, huffing at the amount of time that had gone by.

“You _will_ be finished getting dressed sometime today, right?” Kurt groaned through the curtain to the changing room. “I need to have that finished by the morning!”

Kurt heard his boyfriend shuffle behind the curtain. Kurt bent over and peeked beneath the hanging cloth barrier. He saw Sebastian’s bare feet as he paced back and forth on the wood floor, and a hint of purple fabric clinging to his leg, just above the ankle.

“Don’t get your panties in a twist, sweetheart,” Sebastian bit back. “If you wanted me to get dressed faster, you could have given me instructions.” Sebastian’s head peeked out from behind the curtain. “Or you could come in here and help me.” Sebastian wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

“You can dress yourself by now, Sebastian,” Kurt chided, closing the curtain in Sebastian’s face. “You’re a big boy.”

“Don’t you know it,” Sebastian growled. Kurt covered his mouth with his hand and bit his lip, trying to stifle a chuckle. He didn’t want to encourage Sebastian, especially since his dallying was putting Kurt almost an hour behind schedule.

“Seriously, Sebastian,” Kurt whined. “I’m cutting this down to the wire. I promised Sergio he’d have this for his audition in the morning, and he’s _paying_ me, so could you…”

“Alright, alright.” Sebastian sighed. Kurt perked up a little. For a second, Kurt could have sworn that Sebastian sounded nervous. “Can…is anyone else out there?”

“What do you care?” Kurt didn’t mean to snap, but he was quickly losing patience. He wanted to get this done so he could get home, climb under the covers with Sebastian, and spend the rest of the evening having sex and watching reality t.v.

“Just…” Another long sigh. “Please?”

“Okay, okay,” Kurt relented, closing and locking the door to the costume room. “You’re good.”

Sebastian stepped out slowly from behind the curtain, with none of his usual strutting or cocky bravado, but Kurt didn’t have time to notice. He was on Sebastian in an instant, pulling at the fabric, lifting Sebastian’s arms to check for bunching, tugging on the Sergered seams for puckering and gaps.

“So, this is the future of haute couture, is it?” Sebastian asked, looking down at the uni-tard hugging his body, leaving nothing to the imagination. “Shimmery Spandex?”

“Not exactly,” Kurt answered offhandedly. “Well, I guess, yes, if you’re a ballet dancer. Now stop fidgeting…Sebastian…stop tugging…Sebastian…stop…Sebastian!”

Kurt stood to confront his boyfriend, and for the first time in all of recorded history, Sebastian turned away from Kurt’s gaze and blushed.

Kurt’s brow knit together as he appraised his boyfriend’s sudden bashfulness.

“Sebastian?” Kurt pried gently. “Sebastian, are you...embarrassed?”

“No,” he replied tersely, his voice tight, as he continued to side-eye Kurt only through the mirror on the wall.

Kurt bit his lip as he watched Sebastian adamantly keeping his eyes glued to a spot on the wall.

Kurt knew that look on Sebastian’s face; the one that said Sebastian was done talking. Kurt got a sudden stroke of inspiration.

“Well, good,” he said brightly, “because we need to walk down to the practice studio and find Sergio so he can approve this piece.”

Sebastian’s head snapped up, his face drawn and pale, extreme panic in his sea green eyes.

“No—Kurt…but you said…”

Kurt felt like a heel teasing Sebastian. He didn’t imagine in a million years that his little taunt would earn that dramatic a reaction.

“I’m sorry.” Kurt ran soothing hands down Sebastian’s arms, shushing him gently. “I didn’t mean it. We don’t have to go anywhere. I was just joking.”

Sebastian breathed a sigh of relief, dropping his eyes to his feet to avoid Kurt’s triumphant smirk. Of course, if he had looked, all he would have seen on Kurt’s face was a look of genuine concern for his boyfriend, who was trembling with the thought of walking three doors down in a purple Spandex leotard.

“Would you like to explain this to me?” Kurt asked, trying to catch Sebastian’s downcast eyes.

“Explain what?” Sebastian mumbled, eyes meeting Kurt’s and then darting away.

“Why does this bother you?”

Sebastian put his hands on his hips, finally lifting his head, but still not meeting Kurt’s gaze.

“I just…” Sebastian looked at the ceiling, trying to find the right words. “I feel so _exposed_ in this thing.”

Kurt had to laugh.

“You?” Kurt chuckled uncontrollably. “The man who answers the door for the pizza delivery boy dressed with barely a hand towel wrapped around your waist?”

“That’s different,” Sebastian argued, scoffing at Kurt’s amused gaze.

“That’s almost naked!!” Kurt laughed harder at what he felt was becoming an absurd argument.

“ _Almost_ naked is different than this!” Sebastian pinched at the fabric and then let go, letting it snap back into place. “This is like a big, sparkly, purple flag showing every flaw…”

Kurt cast a glance down his boyfriend’s body, a look of exaggerated incredulity on his face.

“What flaws?” Kurt asked. “Where are these flaws of which you speak of?”

“They’re there,” Sebastian persisted. Kurt finally broke down, bending over double and laughing so hard he could hardly breathe.

“Yes, I know. Shocking,” Sebastian griped. “Sebastian Smythe has flaws.”

“Well…I don’t see them,” Kurt coughed, wiping the tears from his eyes.

“Believe me, they’re there,” Sebastian muttered.

Kurt sobered up at the defeated sound in Sebastian’s voice, and looked again at his boyfriend who wasn’t smirking, wasn’t joking, wasn’t affecting a superior attitude in any way. His arms crossed tightly over his chest, he stared over Kurt’s head, jaw set, entire body rigid.

Kurt sighed.

“Oh, Seb…” Kurt moved behind Sebastian and turned him toward the mirror. “Do you know what I see when I look at you in this outfit?”

Sebastian didn’t answer, simply huffing under his breath.

“I see the body that I love.”

Kurt bent low to caress Sebastian’s calf with the palm of his right hand.

“I see your muscular legs…” Kurt lightly ran his fingertips up the side seam of the Spandex.

“I see every contour of your amazing thighs…” His fingers traveled around the front of Sebastian’s legs, touching a little firmer, more like a massage. Kurt could see Sebastian’s eyes sneaking a peek at Kurt’s fingers through the glass. He cleared his throat when Kurt noticed, and looked away again. Kurt smiled and shook his head.

“I see these sculpted hips,” Kurt continued, grabbing roughly at Sebastian’s hips, pleased with himself when he heard Sebastian moan softly. “And these incredible abs…” Kurt traced along the visible lines of Sebastian’s six-pack through the tight fabric. “Do you know how jealous I am of these abs?” Kurt whispered. He wrapped his arms around Sebastian’s chest and hooked his chin over his shoulder, pressing his chest against his boyfriend’s back, molding them together.

“And I bet you haven’t seen your ass in this…” Kurt’s voice was barely more than a breathless whimper. “But it looks absolutely delicious.”

Kurt knew he was winning when he saw Sebastian turning back to look at his reflection in the mirror, starting from the floor and moving up over the dips and curves of his own body until he reached Kurt’s hungry blue eyes. His green eyes opened wide with surprise, eyebrows raised, but the expression on his face still looked unsure.

“Come on, Seb,” Kurt cooed. “Can’t you think of one nice thing to say about yourself in this outfit?”

Sebastian tilted his head back and forth, a smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth.

“This leotard makes my junk look huge.”

Kurt snickered as he kissed his boyfriend’s shoulder.

“That’s because your junk _is_ huge,” Kurt agreed, looping his arms around Sebastian’s neck. “Come on. Let’s get you out of this and go home.”

“Or we can bring it home with us…” Sebastian purred, turning in Kurt’s arms.

“Yeah?” Kurt liked where this conversation was headed.

“I can put it on…”

Sebastian kissed Kurt’s mouth gently, biting his lower lip after each kiss like a signature.

“A-ha…” Kurt chased Sebastian’s lips as he spoke, wanting more, forgetting for a moment that they were locked in the costume department of NYADA and not at home in their apartment.

“And then…” Sebastian teased, moving just slightly out of Kurt’s reach, “I can order a pizza and wear this to answer the door.”

Sebastian laughed when Kurt smacked him on the arm.

“No way,” Kurt said, pushing Sebastian back behind the curtain. “Antonio’s already in love with you. If he sees you in this, he’ll never leave us alone.”

“That might mean free pizza,” Sebastian quipped.

“Yeah,” Kurt murmured, “or a dead delivery boy.” Kurt sneaked one last peek at his boyfriend in Spandex before he closed the curtain completely.


	35. My Demon Lover

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here is a one-shot I wrote for the anon prompt ‘incubus’. It’s kind of dark, considering the nature of incubus and how they view humans. Demon!Kurt. Future fic, supernatural, angst, mention of Huntbastian. Rated M.

He’s gorgeous. Flawless. If you see him, partaking in the nightlife - weaving amongst the fabulous, overindulgent people of the city - he may just seem like another glamorously dressed hard-body with just one exception. He has no soul. He’s poison, and death eventually follows where he goes. He preys on the beautiful and the righteous. Those who would not stray fall at his feet. Those who would not hurt another would gladly kill for a night with him. Nothing grows when he is near, except for the overwhelming desire to be his.

He collects stalwart people and ruins them; turns them into his willing slaves just for the honor of a night in his bed, but after that, there’s no turning back. No human is ever good enough. No happiness as fulfilling. People waste away their lives seeking him out, or praying that he will come to them, but no prayers have ever reached him. He is a demon of the basest desires, fallen, feeding off the raw need that doesn’t always give itself freely.

But that’s okay, because Kurt lives for the challenge, and he finds one in a man who is truly and helplessly in love - a green-eyed Adonis wrapped blissfully in the arms of another lover.

And Kurt can’t wait for his chance to tear them apart.

He follows them home from a night spent out enjoying the town. He can read their minds. See into their hearts. One is called Hunter, but the one the demon wants is named Sebastian.

_Sebastian._

Sebastian, who volunteers weekends at the local children’s hospital.

Sebastian, who calls his mother three times a week.

Sebastian, who is deeply in love with his boyfriend of two years.

In fact, Sebastian is planning to ask Hunter to marry him soon.

Kurt found Sebastian just in time. When love is ripe like this, it’s so much fun to destroy. Kurt grins, vicious and cruel, teeth pointed for just a second as he gives in to his nature and fully enjoys the rapture of this moment.

He waits until the two climb into bed together, dizzy from a little too much tequila and a lot of erotic dancing, and watches from the window as they make love. Kurt is intrigued by the way Sebastian seems to submit to Hunter. In Kurt’s eyes, Hunter is nothing special – a few muscles, an obvious dye job, capped teeth and pale (to the point of almost colorless) green eyes. Sebastian lies beneath him and moans almost predictably, but Kurt notices how Sebastian squeezes his eyes tight when Hunter isn’t looking. Kurt smiles.

Kurt knows that game.

Sebastian is imagining someone else.

That’s not to say that Sebastian is disloyal. Kurt wouldn’t be so attracted to him if he were. But Sebastian has a type, something different from Hunter that really gets him off. Kurt searches his fantasies and immediately comes up with a façade that can overwhelm Sebastian - the visage of a man right out of his dirtiest dreams.

Kurt is not a patient demon, and even after a few minutes of intercourse, Kurt becomes bored with the show. He speeds things along, insuring that Hunter gets his ‘happy ending’ and drops quickly to sleep, while Sebastian is left, disappointed and wanting.

Sebastian sighs, too frustrated to keep from crying his distress, but too tired to do anything about his condition, and he falls asleep unfulfilled.

He falls asleep vulnerable.

Sebastian drifts in and out of sleep, between the point of awake and dreaming, when Kurt makes his move, creeping in like a venomous snake, curling along the floor, an intangible wisp of black smoke darkening the air. He approaches the bed and shifts, taking a corporal form, much like the one he plans to adopt to seduce his new lover.

Kurt paces around the bed from one side to the other, first regarding Sebastian, then Hunter, wondering what in the hell Sebastian could possibly see in this plasticky-looking man. Kurt resists the urge to invade his dreams, lock him in a nightmare of losing his precious Sebastian, of seeing him walk away without a backward glance.

But Kurt decides to save that for later.

Kurt turns when Sebastian whimpers, knowing his time has come. He rescues his beautiful human lover from a troubled, stressful sleep, climbing on top of him, entering inside of him, filling his dreams with visions of his body moving over him. Sebastian can see eyes, blue as ice but filled with an almost other-worldly warmth and affection, staring down at him, met by a smile that can put the sun to shame and skin of pure alabaster, as if it was carved from stone. Sebastian can feel this amazing body all around him, sliding against him, wrapped around his neglected cock, pulsing inside him. Every inch of him is covered in a sensation of skin and tongue and wet and heat and he almost cries out into the darkness.

“Are…are you really here?” he asks instead, speaking more with his mind and his heart than his mouth.

“Yes,” the demon reassures him as he continues to fill Sebastian’s body with his addictive pleasure. “I came here for you. Just for you. And now you belong to me.”

For some reason, this is what Sebastian has been waiting for, even laying here beside his lover, the man he swore he would marry. Sebastian chooses this dream instead, and lets it envelope him. Along with the almost never-ending, blinding ecstasy that builds and builds with almost no end in sight, leaving him exhausted and sated in a way he’s never known, he feels something small and sharp, like a tiny thorn, worm its way into his heart. But that feeling is so insignificant in the face of his momentous release, he allows it to linger, to let it burn, with little more thought about it than a brief recognition of its existence.

Sebastian falls asleep in the arms of an invisible man from his dreams while deep inside his innocent soul a tiny burr is left.

The next morning, Sebastian finds it hard to concentrate on even the tiniest task. Buttoning up his shirt, putting a Windsor knot in his tie, even styling his hair takes more thought than he can muster. He still feels the heat of that incredible night. It crawls beneath his skin, itching away at places he can’t scratch, places he can’t reach. It’s inside him. He needs to find it.

Sebastian’s heart changes, craving his demon lover to the detriment of all else. The first victim of Sebastian’s deviance is Hunter - poor, clueless Hunter. He tries to comfort his love, tries to hold him, but Sebastian yells and pushes him away. Sebastian calls him worthless, calls him an asshole, throws every barb he has and comes up with a few new ones, and by the time he’s done, Hunter leaves in tears, vowing silently to never return.

Sebastian doesn’t go to work. Why does he need to work anyway? His trust fund will last him for the rest of his life if he uses it carefully. Food and rent are really all the worldly comforts he needs. Something to keep him going and a place to sit and wait – that will do.

Sebastian calls it a night at around 7:30 – just an hour after sunset. He hasn’t eaten a thing. He hasn’t left his apartment. He spent the day in a chair pushed up to the window, letting the minutes tick by. Life went by around him even if he wasn’t an active participant.

Kurt knows all this. He settled in a corner of Sebastian’s apartment and watched. He made Sebastian wait, let the little thorn needle its way deeper until Kurt was sure that Sebastian belonged to him without question, that he was willing to give up his entire world, his own happiness and the happiness of those around him, just for another taste of Kurt.

Kurt waits until the darkness is at its peak, and Sebastian has slipped into a restless sleep, afraid that his dream lover has abandoned him. He doesn’t mourn all the things he’s given up. He only despairs for this one thing that he’s afraid he’s lost. He gives in to self-loathing, curses himself for not being enough, despises his looks and his voice and his clothes. He breaks himself down to only his faults.

It’s this moment that Kurt chooses to come to his rescue.

“You’re here,” Sebastian sighs with a wash of relief when those crystal blue eyes come into view. “I was afraid I wouldn’t see you again.”

“Poor Sebastian,” Kurt coos condescendingly. “I’ll never leave you.”

Sebastian nods, content that this gorgeous man is telling him the truth, and for his loyalty and obedience, Kurt takes him over, bleeds into him until his essence fills Sebastian’s body. He races through his veins, wraps around his spine, and completes him from the inside of his soul to the surface of his skin. Every one of Sebastian’s senses is filled with him – he tastes him on his tongue and smells the masculine scent of him with every intake of breath. He feels Kurt all over, brushing against his lips, covering him with his warmth, fingering him deep and caressing his aching length with his mouth. Sebastian arches his back and cries out. This is what it is to be devoured, consumed, taken for everything he is with nothing left behind. Sebastian’s body is taken to its limit, again and again, cumming with the demon’s voice singing sweetly in his ears, making dark promises, spouting poetry and sonnets which might be empty and void except for one thing…

This demon, in this one insignificant human, this mortal plaything, has found a way, his own way, to love.

It’s a cold comfort, though. Demons can’t really, truly love, and even if he could, he doesn’t have anything but lies to offer.

But Sebastian belongs to Kurt, and Kurt doesn’t share his things.

There is nothing left in life for Sebastian but this – the waiting for his demon lover to return, filled to the brim through the day with hatred and self-doubt, until the sun sets and he gets to bask in the complete fulfillment of his demon’s empty love.


	36. Read To Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sebastian is an Indie film maker doing a companion project to the Hysterical Literature series, using men instead of women. Kurt volunteers, which requires him to read from a book with a vibrator inserted in his ass…a vibrator that Sebastian controls.
> 
> Rated M for voyeurism, anal masturbation, and consensual forced orgasm. (3,789 words)
> 
> This is a short fic of my own invention based off the project Hysterical Literature. You can look up the videos on YouTube.
> 
> "Hysterical Literature is a video art series by NYC-based photographer and filmmaker Clayton Cubitt. It explores feminism, mind/body dualism, distraction portraiture, and the contrast between culture and sexuality."
> 
> (Disclaimer: I do not own Hysterical Literature, nor do I own rights to the book Kurt reads from Patti LuPone: A Memoir.)

Kurt paces the studio, butterflies gathering in his stomach as he mulls over the details of the project he moronically volunteered for. Why did he do this? Why does he let Rachel talk him into shit just because she’s too afraid to take risks of her own?

“Think about it, Kurt,” Rachel had argued, “it’s cutting edge…artistic…people will search for Kurt Hummel, and do you know what they’ll see nestled in among a dated _Single Ladies_ video? You reading from the memoir of the legendary Patti LuPone, looking trendy and Indie…”

“Yeah, and having an orgasm!” Kurt had balked, walking away from her since there wasn’t enough room to run.

“It’s in black and white, Kurt,” Rachel had continued. “You know how good you look in black and white.”

“Why are you talking me into this?” Kurt had spun on her, still not able to shake the expression of disgust from his face. “Didn’t we decide that nudity and selling sex was cheap? Isn’t that why you didn’t get naked for that disastrous student film?”

“You’re not selling anything,” she had persisted, following him as he gathered up his school books and headed for the door. “It’s all volunteer. And there is no nudity. This could really help your image, you know. Help you expand beyond your boundaries, make people see you as a sexy, desirable, _leading_ man.”

This was when Kurt paused, and Rachel knew she had him. The idea of someone other than his ex-boyfriend Blaine seeing him as sexy was one of the biggest thorns in his side. Not being sexy lost him the part of Tony in McKinley High School’s performance of West Side Story ( a role he lost, incidentally, to his ex). It burned him up inside then, and he hated to admit it, especially with all the changes he had made since working for Vogue and getting into NYADA, it burned him up still.

Praying on his weakness forced him to backpedal, and agreeing to her asinine idea landed him here, in a dark and chilly room, waiting for someone to tell him what method of sexual torture he would have to endure while reading out loud from _Patti LuPone: A Memoir._

He hears a few sharp knocks on the door and braces himself for whatever pimply, gangly, awkward-looking intern or lackey is going to walk through, so he’s completely stunned when the man who enters in anything but gangly or awkward. In fact, the smug faced Adonis who saunters effortlessly into the room is everything Kurt pictures when he hears the words ‘Indie film maker’ – a man with impeccable fashion taste who tries hard to make himself look brooding and earthy; smoldering green eyes; smooth, tanned skin; and a mouth Kurt is sure has committed over a hundred and one carnal sins. He wears tight, black jeans with a black Henley to match, paired with an ankle length vintage duster and an almost whimsical, shabby chic scarf. If Kurt saw this man on the street, he would say that this outfit doth protest too much, trying way too hard to be perceived as cool, but here in this small studio, about to film such a taboo movie, it all works.

“Hello,” the man says, and Kurt gasps when he hears just how perfect a match his voice is to that sinful-looking mouth. “My name is Sebastian Smythe. Thank you for joining me on this project.”

“Uh…Kurt,” Kurt says, thankfully remembering his name and figuring out how to speak. “Kurt Hummel…and you’re welcome, I guess.”

Sebastian extends his hand, and Kurt takes it, shaking it once. Sebastian’s skin is soft and warm and Kurt doesn’t want to let go, but he doesn’t feel like making an ass of himself either.

“So, do you know anything about the project?” Sebastian asks, pulling two chairs up to a long table in the center of the room, and motioning for Kurt to sit down in one while he occupies the other.

“A little,” Kurt admits, dropping down into the uncomfortable hard-plastic chair. “I know about the videos on YouTube, but I haven’t seen them yet.” Kurt bites his lip sheepishly, embarrassed to admit that he knows so little about what he’s doing here.

“Well, I’m producing a companion project to something another artist here in New York is doing called Hysterical Literature. Clayton Cubitt has a series of videos that explore feminism and mind-body dualism using distraction portraiture as a medium. I’m doing something similar, but with men instead of women, with more of a focus on the distraction.”

Kurt’s face must look blank or confused, or maybe he looks sick because Sebastian puts a hand on his shoulder and squeezes gently.

“Here’s the deal,” Sebastian says, his voice soft, almost intimate. “You’re going to put in a vibrator, you’re going to sit at this table, and you’re going to read to me.”

Kurt doesn’t want Sebastian to stop talking in that magical, soothing voice, but at the mention of a vibrator Kurt turns his head and notices for the first time on the table in front of him a blister package containing a brand-new butt plug vibrator with a remote control attachment and beside it an almost ridiculously large bottle of anal lube.

Kurt picks up the vibrator and looks it over, all too aware of Sebastian’s eyes on him, watching him for a reaction.

“Uh…this has an unusually long cord, doesn’t it?” Kurt says, flipping it around in his hands and looking the arrowhead-shaped plug over from all angles.

“I have them special made,” Sebastian says, his voice lowering again in a way that grabs Kurt’s undivided attention. “This way _I_ get to control it…from behind the camera.”

Kurt turns to face Sebastian, and his eyes are suddenly a trap that Kurt cannot get away from. For a brief moment, Kurt wonders if Sebastian is flirting with him.

 _Please let him be flirting with me_ , he thinks.

It would make it so much easier to masturbate in front of him if he knew that Sebastian found him even remotely attractive.

***

The plug is larger than he’s used to, and a little uncomfortable, but none of that impacts him quite so much as when Sebastian saunters up beside him and takes the remote from his hand, knocking him a suggestive wink before he walks away. Kurt swallows hard and looks into the camera, ignoring the slight tug of the cord that threads into his skinny jeans, running down the back and through the crack in his ass. This is his last chance to bolt; to pull the plug, as it were, and head for the hills. But Kurt is tired of running away. He’s taking a risk, even if it means embarrassing the ever living shit out of himself.

Kurt smiles, reaching out for all of the confidence contained in even the most insignificant cell of his body.

“Rolling,” Sebastian prompts simply, smiling with a single thought in his head.

_Let the games begin._

“Hello. I’m Kurt Hummel, and today I’ll be reading a passage from _Patti LuPone: A Memoir_.” Kurt turns the book to the camera so that everyone in YouTube land can see. He opens the book to the very first page and starts to read.

“I’ve opened _Gypsy_ four times…”

Five words in and Kurt feels the plug spring to life, nothing too sensational, just a low buzz that vibrates through his body, tingling up his spine and spreading out over his limbs, even to the tips of his fingers. With enough concentration it’s pretty easy to ignore. Kurt pauses, swallowing as he focuses on the words of his idol printed in typeface on the page in front of him and not the subtle hum of pleasure that starts to coil deep in his stomach. He takes another breath and begins to read.

That small stutter isn’t lost to Sebastian. He normally switches on the vibrator before his volunteers start reading, to get them accustomed to the sensation, but he couldn’t resist waiting a moment with Kurt. He needed to see the man’s reaction. Sebastian has seen a dozen volunteers read. One or two of them had a definite effect on him, but all in all this is just a job, and he can easily suppress any reaction he may have to the men as he watches them break down on camera, falling to pieces as they cum. But Kurt…Sebastian has never met anyone like Kurt. Under any other circumstances, outside of this studio, Sebastian would ask Kurt out for a drink, maybe even to dinner. Sebastian, whose sex life survived on a diet of one-night stands, never dreamed he had a ‘type’. Meeting Kurt, talking to him for just five minutes, and Sebastian now knew for sure that he definitely had one.

“Lambs are born in the spring. We performed in the summer. The lamb was, unfortunately, a sheep. The sheep was going crazy…”

Kurt appears a little too composed for Sebastian’s taste. As unfair as it sounds even in his own head, he is far too eager to watch Kurt come undone. Sebastian switches the vibrator up a notch.

“I-I was af-fraid the sheep would fall…”

The change comes out of nowhere, and hits Kurt everywhere at once. Strange how the lowest setting was tolerable, but one step up is almost debilitating. Kurt stops and swallows again, his heart racing. The hand that holds the page he’s reading shakes. He folds one leg carefully over the other as he tries to continue.

“…into the orchestra pit in his desperate attempt to escape…”

Kurt takes a deep, shuddering breath to steady himself, and Sebastian follows it, watching with wonder at how Kurt pulls himself up straighter, rolling his neck on his shoulders in a casual attempt at dismissing the waves that are now pulsing with vibrant energy, titillating every last nerve ending, but Sebastian knows. He can tell by the way Kurt’s legs bounce a little beneath the table, the way he shifts the book restlessly from cradled in both hands to lying flat on the table, and then back in his hands, gripping tightly.

“…th-the frantic sheep w-was caught…mmm… before he crapped on everything…Hmm…Th-they put him in the boys’ bathroom offstage right…” Kurt reads on, stopping every now and again to breathe, to hum, sighing to relieve the pressure. He tries not to be distracted, focusing on the page, trying not to let the words blur as images race into his head of the gorgeous man with the remote control climbing underneath the table, taking Kurt’s aching cock into his mouth, and swiftly putting him out of his misery. Why did Sebastian have to be gorgeous? Why did he have to have that silky voice and those clear emerald eyes? He could probably handle being forced to cum like this in front of a hag in a pantsuit, or some middle-aged stooped-over man with a pocket protector and wire-rimmed glasses, but this…this is torture. This is a million-and-one secrets he wasn’t ready to tell without even going out for coffee first. This is laying his soul bare in front of someone he could legitimately see himself fantasizing about. This is no chance at all of making a better first impression whatsoever.

Kurt wants to call it quits, but he just can’t stop. His body won’t let him. Everything feels too good, and he knows that if he stands up to leave it will be over anyway. He’s so close to cumming that a single shiver, the tiniest breath, will do him in.

He blinks the words back into focus. They are his anchor, and he needs them to keep from meeting the gaze of the handsome director and losing it all completely.

Sebastian finds himself rocking in his chair, subconsciously following Kurt’s movements as he fidgets with his own body – the way Kurt shifts in his chair, the way the fingers of one hand have started to thrum against the table top, crawling to the edge and back in an effort to keep Kurt distracted.

Sebastian is breathless, his entire body burning, imagining what it might be like to be locked between Kurt’s thighs while he quivers and moans with Sebastian buried deep inside him, what it would look like when Kurt finally came.

Sebastian has to find out.

He switches the vibrator up again to medium-high.

“…the tiled bathroom would increase the volume and reverberate his _bah_ -ah-ah-AH!”

The vibrator shifts up a gear and Kurt’s whole body trembles. He cries out suddenly, unable to hold the sound in. It was waiting so long, lodged in his throat, begging to be let go. Kurt throws his head back on his shoulders and squeezes his eyes shut, willing his body to calm down, but he can’t. There’s no possible way. He looks back down at the book, trying to stop his hands from shaking long enough to find his place. He gives up, laying his arms over the book to keep it from closing and picks up reading anywhere.

“At…at…ah…at poignant moments in the play…”

Sebastian smiles, watching Kurt shiver, knowing that he’s doing this to him. He’s the one in control, and he decides to play dirty. He’s never done this with any other subject, but Kurt’s not any other subject.

Kurt is the subject he _wants_.

Sebastian dials down the vibrations for just a second, and then hits it to high.

Kurt feels the vibrations die a little and he relaxes, thankful for the reprieve, sure that Sebastian has enough for his video and that he’ll call cut soon.

“…we would hear the plaintive _w_ AIL!”

The pulsations are back again, stronger than before, and all thoughts of reading and _Gypsy_ and Ms. Patti LuPone are gone. The book shoots forward out of Kurt’s grasp and he grabs onto the arms of the chair, shoving back with his legs. It’s too much, it’s just too much, but Kurt has to give in. How can he stop? He sinks down in his chair, pushing the vibrating plug as far in as it will go, trying to search out the spot that needs it most. He’s grinding into the chair, heels scraping along the floor, moaning into the air around him. His hands ball into fists and then flex, fingers stretching out indecisively. Sebastian knows what Kurt is contemplating, hedging on a decision, and Sebastian prays he makes the right one.

Kurt isn’t quite comfortable with the idea of unzipping his jeans and pulling out his cock, but he’s aching where his length pushes against his fly, and in a moment of weakness he comes to a compromise and frantically starts palming himself over the fabric.

Sebastian can’t help his moan, or the way he starts to shift in his own seat, trying to find friction enough to relieve the erection that has been growing since Kurt took that first stutter of breath on the very first page.

“Oh, God!” Kurt cries out. “Oh, God! Oh, God!”

Sebastian’s hands are shaking now. He’s dying to climb over the table and into Kurt’s lap, to take what he dreams has to be an insanely perfect cock and stroke it, helping Kurt climax, but he can’t. All he can do is toy with the little remote in his hands, so he does, switching it from low to high at odd intervals, watching with rapt fascination as Kurt bucks in his seat, sputtering a combination of nonsense syllables which include “Yes!”, “Oh, God!”, and “please”.

But it’s the addition of Sebastian’s name that raises things to a whole other level.

“Sebastian!” Kurt cries out. “Sebastian, please!”

Please, what? Please, stop? Please, yes? Please let me cum? Please come over here and fuck me?

Sebastian is good with most of these.

Sebastian watches Kurt writhe and for a moment he is struck with a sharp pang of guilt.

This is a legitimate art project, and Kurt’s a volunteer.

But, God, Sebastian wishes this could be so much more.

Sebastian decides to grant Kurt his wish, turning the vibrator on high and watching Kurt cum, lust-blown blue eyes wide, lips wrapped around a silent moan, face flushed in a way that looks like scarlet hand prints dragging down his cheeks. Kurt’s hips stutter into the hand that’s gripping white-knuckled at the front of his impossibly tight jeans, and Sebastian feels himself cum suddenly at this image of perfect completion.

Kurt’s body starts to relax, and the euphoria that erased all of his inhibitions is quickly replaced with an overwhelming tidal wave of humiliation and shame. In essence, he just gave himself away, gave himself to Sebastian. How could he be so foolish! What was he even doing here? Fuck Rachel and her stupid ideas! Fuck the way he’s always getting tricked into doing something low and degrading when he should just say no. But regardless, one thing still remains…that orgasm…that mind-wrenching, heart-stopping, body-shattering orgasm…was the most incredible thing he has ever experienced, and Sebastian gave him that.

At least he’ll have that to daydream about when he moves to Nassau County and hides under a rock.

Kurt sits up, noticing how the vibrator has stopped, silently thankful. He straightens the table and turns back to the camera. He picks up his book again.

“My name is Kurt Hummel,” he says in a voice that still shakes, “and that was a passage from _Patti LuPone: A Memoir_.”

Sebastian calms his breathing, reaching out carefully to turn off the camera.

“And cut.”

***

Sebastian leaves Kurt to remove the vibrator and clean up, needing the excuse to step outside for a breath of fresh air. Kurt cleans the vibrator thoroughly with soap and water, using the menial task to take his mind from recalling that intense moment of rapture, or the way he thought (or most likely imagined) that he heard Sebastian moan from somewhere off-camera.

Sebastian knocks lightly on the door before he enters, and Kurt is pacing the room again, this time eager to put this all behind him before he finds some other way to embarrass himself in front of Sebastian.

“So, I think that’s all I need from you, Mr. Hummel,” Sebastian says. Kurt is thrown off by his professional demeanor and his heart sinks a little.

No. Kurt didn’t get to him at all.

“What should I…” Kurt looks down at his hands where he holds the vibrator, cleaned and packed into a plastic Ziploc bag.

“You can keep it,” Sebastian says quickly. “You know, because we don’t recycle them or anything.”

“Of course.” Kurt doesn’t want this moment to be awkward which is strange because he can’t bring himself to look at the man standing in front of him. Not in his eyes, at least. But his shoes are quite lovely.

“Well, if I need anything else from you, I have your name and number on the release form,” Sebastian says.

Kurt sees this as his moment to be bold, so he grabs it.

“My address is on that release form, too. Maybe you can stop by sometime,” Kurt says, looking down at the book and the vibrator in his hands, his face hotter and redder than a Carolina Reaper, “and I can read to you again.”

Sebastian is silent, and Kurt has no idea what’s going on in his head, but whatever happened in that studio…that moment has long passed.

Kurt nods.

“Okay,” he says, shoving the bag with the vibrator deep into an inside pocket of his coat so no one will see it while he takes the long subway ride home. “Well, good luck with your project.” Kurt never looks up into Sebastian’s face, just walks around him and out the door, sprinting down the street to the subway the moment the door clicks shut behind him.

***

Rachel is conspicuously absent when Kurt returns, and Kurt is glad. He no more wants to talk to her right now that he wants to shove his hand in a car door, though the car door would sting a lot less than her pestering. Kurt vows then and there to learn how to say the word ‘no’ to Rachel Berry and her stupid ideas.

His planned evening of silent self-pity comes to a crashing halt when he hears a knock on the door. Figuring Rachel forgot her keys again, he has half a mind to let her just sit out in the hallway, until a distinctive masculine voice calls through the crack.

“Kurt? Are you here? Do I have the right apartment?”

Kurt freezes, and for a moment he’s not sure if he should just pretend that he’s not at home, but he’s also way too curious to know what would bring Sebastian Smythe all the way from uptown to his door in Bushwick at nine o’clock at night.

“Coming,” he calls. He vaults across the apartment, stopping short to adjust his shirt and fix his hair before throwing open the door.

Sebastian stands leaning against the door jamb in a much more formal version of the struggling artist look he sported at the studio that afternoon. He’s smirking, but with a much more contrite look in his eye.

“Sebastian?” Kurt asks, trying not to sound too excited to see him. “What…”

“I’m an idiot,” Sebastian interrupts, but in a soft, self-depreciating way that Kurt can forgive. “I’m an imbecile. I shouldn’t have just let you leave. I should have asked you out for coffee or something.”

“Is that what you do with all of your volunteers?” Kurt asks, tilting his head, still curious as to why Sebastian is there.

“No,” Sebastian admits, and the smirk becomes wider. “I think you know that I don’t.”

Kurt _did_ know. He had a couple of eye-opening hours after he got home. He finally went online and checked out the rest of Sebastian’s videos. He could hear the vibrator when it switched gears, never going higher than medium. He saw how the men reacted. He knew that what happened with him in the studio was different. What Sebastian did to Kurt he didn’t do with his other volunteers. At first, Kurt was angry. He was going to pull permission to show his video. He even thought about suing. But once his knee jerk anger died down, Kurt found himself hoping that somehow he’d hear from Sebastian again.

And here he was.

“I was kind of hoping I could make it up to you,” Sebastian says, shifting a little on his feet, and Kurt can see that Sebastian has a rather large book and a plastic blister package with a brand new vibrator in his hands. “Maybe this time, I could read to you.”

Kurt rolls his lips over his teeth, biting down to stop from blushing.

“Well, in that case,” Kurt says, throwing the door open wide, “why don’t you come in?”


	37. A Second 'First Kiss' for Kurt Hummel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a one-shot based of off a Klaine one-shot I read on tumblr. THAT one-shot was based off the project about twenty strangers sharing a first kiss. (You can look up the video on YouTube.)
> 
> The Klaine one-shot is very sweet and love-at-first-sight, so I thought I would do the same thing for Kurt and Sebastian, but with a slightly different outcome. (P. S. I realize that technically it might be considered Kurt’s THIRD first kiss, but I would like to think of it as the second one that he actually liked…)

 

Kurt has become very creative with the methods he uses to get over the heartache of breaking up with Blaine. It didn’t start intentionally; more as a way to keep from breaking down and, in a moment of weakness, taking him back. For example, every time he thought about Blaine, he went for a run in the park. If he had the overwhelming urge to call him, he took the train uptown to Bloomingdale’s instead and tried on shoes he would never be able to afford. When he got a text from Blaine, he erased it without reading it and then headed to the Met to look through whatever new artist was on temporary exhibit.

This inspires him to take things a step further and start planning new activities to preempt any melancholy thoughts while broadening his horizons, and in the process, meeting new people. He has a list to rival his original bucket list, adding a new activity almost every day. Already he’s learned to make sushi, taken a Segway tour of Manhattan, and gone to a weekend circus camp.

Some of his activity choices, however, have been more hit and miss.

Like, say, the one he’s signed up for today.

Making a documentary.

Twenty strangers sharing a first kiss.

Kurt inhabits a small corner of the waiting room and people watches while he waits to be called. He pretends to read the latest issue of Vogue and covertly surveys the other players in this game, seeing if his gaydar pings strong for any particular person.

_‘A backwards cap and, jeez, pull up your pants…nope’_

_‘Ugh! He’s looking down her dress! Rude!…No, actually he’s looking at her shoes. Ping!’_

_‘Nope…not in those bargain Dockers slacks…’_

_‘Not with that haircut…’_

_‘Pretty sure you’re mistaking this for Project Runway in that outfit…pass…’_

_‘Now wait a second…ping, ping, PING all over the place!’_

Emerald green eyes, an adorable ski slope nose, and a perfect smile, wearing a classic charcoal gray Brook’s Brothers suit paired with a purple dress shirt.

 _There’s_ a man who has style…and gorgeous to boot.

 _That’s_ a man that Kurt would be okay kissing.

Kurt watches the group thin out as the minutes tick by, surreptitiously keeping his eyes glued to the man that he has quietly claimed as his first kiss.

There are a few heart stopping close calls when Project Runway guy gets paired with a man named Kevin, and bargain Dockers guy is called with someone else named Kurt…a woman, believe it or not.

Kurt loves his name, but he can’t help but feel sorry for the poor girl.

Brook’s Brothers suit goes out in the hall to take a phone call just as the next pair is called, and with one hetero couple seated in the waiting room chatting each other up, it’s pretty obvious to Kurt that he and Brook’s Brothers suit will end up together. Kurt’s heart races as he sends up a silent prayer of thanks to the big spaghetti monster in the sky.

Perhaps this will end up on the list as the pinnacle of Blaine-abolishing activities.

Maybe it will even end up being the story Kurt and Brook’s Brothers suit tell their grandchildren someday.

The lady with the clipboard who has been calling couples to the back steps out from behind the heavy door to the studio.

“Kurt Hummel and Sebastian Smythe?”

“Um…I’m Kurt,” he says, raising his hand and standing. “I think Sebastian _(God that name sounds good rolling off his tongue)_ went outside to make a call.”

“Okay,” she says with a slight frown of disapproval, “why don’t you step inside and I’ll go get him.”

Kurt passes her on the way to the studio, and he can feel his heart in his throat now, trying to make a break for freedom. This is it. Another first kiss. He didn’t realize how thrilling the prospect of kissing someone again was until just this moment, but now…

The door opens, and _Sebastian_ walks in, still talking on his cell phone. His eyes immediately land on Kurt and go wide. He stops speaking midsentence, his mouth forming a little ‘o’, and Kurt can’t help the way his breathing stutters at the flattering response.

“Let me call you back in twenty,” Sebastian says _(and that voice…God that smooth as silk voice…)_ to whomever on the phone, and pockets it quickly, looking Kurt over from head to toe.

Kurt smiles shyly as he approaches the agitated looking man.

“So, how do you want to…”

To Kurt’s surprise, the man backs away, putting up a hand to deflect any more comments from Kurt.

“Uh, no,” he says firmly, peering over Kurt’s head to find the woman who ushered him in, “I told you guys on my form, I’m not into girls.”

Kurt’s jaw drops in shock, a burning flush surging to his cheeks.

“Fuck you!” Kurt spits.

“Not in a million years, princess,” Sebastian drawls, a smug smile curling his lips.

“Okay,” the lady with the clipboard says from behind the camera, “let’s calm…”

“Just what I was thinking,” Kurt growls, advancing on the slightly taller man.

“He thinks!” Sebastian crows, throwing his hands in the air in mock celebration. “And you see, I was wondering seeing as you paired that shirt with those jeans and thought it was a good idea to leave the house.”

“Uh, guys…” clipboard lady approaches them carefully, not wanting to come between them in case this bitch-fest comes to blows, “maybe we can find a different…”

“Not that my outfit isn’t _fabulous_ ,” Kurt counters, “but at least I can change my clothes. Whatever are you going to do about your stupid little meerkat face?”

“If you want to talk about faces…” Sebastian continues, “maybe you should take a look at yours because I think you need to find a cover-up that’s closer to your natural skin color. That is, unless you’re _trying_ to join the legion of the undead.”

“That’s rich! Did you learn that on your way back from the perfume department after you stood there and screamed, ‘Spray me with everything you’ve got!’”

Kurt and Sebastian inch closer, nearly nose to nose, and clipboard lady gives up, backing out of the line of fire.

“I’m pretty sure there’s another couple of guys we can call who said…”

“No, you’re right, princess,” Sebastian says, inhaling deep just above Kurt’s hair, “What you’ve got going on is a lot better. _Eau du coffee shop_. I have a feeling you have a nine cup a day habit, am I right? Non-fat because otherwise how are you going to squeeze yourself into those teen queen jeans you’re wearing.” Sebastian leans back a bit to take a long, lecherous look down Kurt’s body, and Kurt, still burning with anger and humiliation, feels a new heat pool in his stomach from the way Sebastian’s eyes rake down his body so shamelessly.

“Stop…calling…me…princess!” Kurt grinds out between painfully clenched teeth. “In fact, why don’t you do the world a huge favor and stop talking at all.”

Sebastian leans closer, until his breath is ghosting over Kurt’s parted lip.

“Make me,” he says quietly, his own voice rough and dangerous.

The silence that follows Sebastian’s challenge is nearly a solid force filling the room, and trapped in the tension, the lady with the clipboard considers calling security.

Kurt holds his breath, deciding on his next jab, ready to move in for the kill.

“Fuck it,” Sebastian whispers.

Confused, Kurt opens his mouth to speak, but Sebastian’s there, wrapping an arm around Kurt’s waist, pulling him close, lips claiming his, hungry…no, ravenous, knocking Kurt almost completely off his feet. He feels Sebastian’s free hand crawl up his back, fingers threading into his hair, and Kurt dissolves. He comes to his senses and kisses Sebastian back, determined not to let this disarming man with the acerbic tongue get the upper hand, trying to ignore the way his body responds – how he seems to fit perfectly against him, how he immediately goes hard at the touch of his fingers massaging circles into his lower back, or the broken sound that escapes his mouth when Sebastian’s tongue slides between his lips, as if he always had permission to kiss Kurt like this.

In fact, he _doesn’t_ , not after all the insults, and Kurt becomes furious!

How dare this asshole kiss him like this? How dare he be a douchebag ignoramus _and_ an awesome kisser, especially if he was going to treat Kurt like shit?

Kurt pulls back, breaking the kiss, ready to tear Sebastian a new one, but Sebastian pulls him in again, moving the hand on his waist lower to palm over his ass and press them closer together. Kurt feels Sebastian, his aching length press against him. Kurt’s knees go weak, and Sebastian catches him, leaning him back to deepen the kiss.

“Okay, guys,” a much more relaxed clipboard lady says from behind the camera. “That’s…wow…that’s…I think we have enough…”

Kurt doesn’t care that they’re being filmed. He doesn’t care that clipboard lady basically called cut. What _does_ bother him is that he feels like he’s losing some sort of unspoken competition, and Kurt Hummel doesn’t lose…especially not to a bastard like Sebastian Smythe.

Kurt links a leg around Sebastian’s and ruts slowly against him, and this time the moan he hears belongs to Sebastian.

“Fuuuccckkk…” Sebastian whispers into Kurt’s mouth, his whole body trembling from the slide of Kurt’s erection against his own. Sebastian breaks their kiss this time, setting Kurt on the floor and taking a step back. He looks less put together now, lips swollen and parted as he pants, face flushed, and a slight sheen of sweat just above his brow. Kurt preens a little with pride at this new, wrecked Sebastian he’s created.

Sebastian grins, still cocky but not quite as smug.

“Well, princess, that was unexpected.” He runs a finger downs Kurt’s cheek, and in spite of himself, Kurt shivers. “Maybe we can do that again sometime.”

Kurt huffs, but his heart is still racing at the taste of Sebastian’s peppermint mocha still lingering in his mouth.

“Well,” Kurt says, pulling his business card from his pocket and handing it over, “I suppose…seeing how I owe you.”

Sebastian looks at the card in his hand, and his brow furrows in confusion.

“Owe me?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Kurt says, “for this...”

Before Sebastian can ask again, Kurt rears back and slaps him across the face.

Sebastian’s head snaps to the side with the force of the blow, his hands reflexively forming fists, and Kurt is sure he’s about to get slapped back, but when Sebastian turns his face back to look at Kurt, the eyes that meet his are blown-wide and full of fire.

 _Call me_ , Kurt mouths with a wink and a slight gesture of his hand towards his ear. He turns on his heels and walks away, throwing one last look over his shoulder to see a thoroughly stunned looking lady drop her clipboard and Sebastian, cheek still flaming with an imprint of Kurt’s hand, biting his lip, with a shit-eating grin on his face, inputting Kurt’s number from the crumpled business card into his cell phone.

 

 

 


	38. Melancholy Baby

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rachel, Kurt, and Blaine find a baby on the doorstep of the loft, and have no idea where it came from. Rachel and Blaine leave Kurt to deal with a screaming, unhappy baby, and an hour later Sebastian shows up looking to flirt with Blaine…or is he?
> 
> Futurefic, fluff

“What…what is it?” Rachel asks, looking down at the tiny carrier and it’s even tinier sleeping occupant.

Kurt, standing beside her in the doorway of the loft, scoffs. He turns on her with wide-eyed incredulity.

“What _is_ it? It’s a baby!”

“I know it’s a baby,” Rachel says, rolling her eyes. “What I meant is what is it doing here?”

“Um…I’m going to take a guess that someone left it here,” Blaine adds.

Kurt shakes his head, having about enough of the both of them.

“Well, what should we do with it?” Kurt asks, looking between his roommate and his fiancé with desperation in his eyes.

“Well, I have _Funny Girl_ rehearsals in a half an hour, so I don’t think I’m going to be able to help you with this one.” Rachel tosses her coat on and steps gingerly past the car seat, trying not to disturb the infant. “Let me know how this all turns out,” she calls back in a stage whisper before sprinting for the stairs.

Kurt turns to Blaine, hoping that the man who claims to love kids, who almost didn’t audition for NYADA using the excuse that he wanted to become a teacher instead of admitting that he was scared to death of not being good enough, will be of more help.

Blaine gazes back at Kurt with whiskey-colored eyes full of panic.

“I don’t know what to do, Kurt. Maybe you should call the cops. Or go door to door and see if his parents are somewhere in the building.”

“Wait, wait, wait…” Kurt closes his eyes and shakes his head as he absorbs Blaine’s suggestions. “Why are you talking like I’m doing this alone?”

Blaine sighs, his shoulders dropping.

“I have class, baby,” Blaine says simply, glancing down at the baby one last time before reaching for his bag. “And then I have to run through that solo with Cassie.”

“Your class is intro to theater!” Kurt cries. “I think you can miss one class! And Cassie told you to stop by ‘if you can’. I’m sure you can reschedule. You know that solo backwards and forwards.”

“Kurt…”

“Please, Blaine!” Kurt begs. “I’m an only child. I don’t know anything about babies, or taking care of babies...”

“Well, I’ve never had to take care of a baby before, either,” Blaine counters.

“But at least you LIKE children!”

“Kurt,” Blaine says, kissing him on the cheek, “it’s one baby for a couple of hours max. And it’s asleep. I don’t think it’s going to be too much trouble.”

“But…but…” Kurt sputters as Blaine walks out the door.

“I love you,” Blaine calls back in hushed tones, blowing Kurt a parting kiss. “Good luck.”

And then Blaine is gone, barreling down the steps as if the devil himself were kicking at his heels.

Kurt is alone.

With a baby.

A neighbor from down the hall peeks out of his apartment and Kurt waves. As an afterthought, he calls out, “Hey! Did you lose a baby?” He gestures to the car seat at his feet.

His neighbor, an elderly man with a glass eye, looks Kurt over with a grimace a la old school Popeye, and then retreats back into his home, slamming the door behind him.

The baby startles, dark brown eyes snapping open…and begins to wail.

Kurt sinks down to the floor in front of the carrier, crossing his legs and resting his elbows on his knees, dropping his head into his hands.

“I know how you feel, kid,” he says as the baby continues to bawl. “I know how you feel.”  
***

Kurt’s curious to know if it’s possible for the brain to melt from exposure to loud, high-pitched noises since the baby (a boy, if his absent parents’ truck spattered choice of couture can be trusted) hasn’t given his voice a rest for over an hour. He’s nearly at the end of his rope. He tried calling the police, but since the baby wouldn’t stop crying, the dispatcher on the line couldn’t hear him, and he gave up. He tried swaying and rocking and bouncing. He sang, threatened (nothing serious – just the ambiguous taking away of sweets and t.v. privileges which couldn’t possibly matter to an infant anyway), bargained, and finally reaches acceptance, the last stage of the twelve step program of realizing all hope is gone. He stands in the kitchen with the baby in his arms on the verge of tears while the mini human bawls.

Even the persistent knock on the door doesn’t phase Kurt. He barely hears it.

“Hello?” an unwelcome voice calls through the slight crack in the sliding door. “Blaine?”

“Go away,” Kurt moans, knowing that the likelihood of Sebastian Smythe doing anything he asks is next to nil.

“Oh hello, Kurt,” Sebastian says, walking through the door as if he had been invited. “Are you practicing again, or are you torturing a small, helpless animal?”

Sebastian’s teasing eyes fall on a bedraggled Kurt, leaning against the kitchen counter, red-rimmed eyes close to tears. He stops short.

“So, whose spawn is that?” he says, approaching Kurt with an amused smirk on his face. “Is it yours? Because I saw you just last week and you weren’t showing at all, although…” Sebastian looks down the length of Kurt’s body. “…those skinny jeans are looking a little tighter than normal.”

“You know, Sebastian,” Kurt sniffs, pushing past him and heading toward the door, hoping the intrusive man would follow and take the hint. “I don’t have the time or the patience for you right now, so save whatever bullshit excuse you came up with to drop by and hit on Blaine and get the hell out. I’ve got more important shit than you to deal with today.”

Sebastian’s smirk wavers as he takes in the image of Kurt, worn down, nerves frayed, shifting a red-faced infant from hip to hip, cooing in a way that tries to sound soothing but doesn’t quite make it.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

Sebastian sighs.

“Look…um…let me…”

He walks over to Kurt and relieves him of the infant, holding the little boy securely in his arms.

“Don’t!” Kurt exclaims in a halfhearted effort to take the baby back. “I don’t want him to catch your asshole-ness. He’s just a baby. He still has a chance.”

Kurt watches in confusion as Sebastian looks the baby over, patting his behind lightly, giving him a sniff, and for some odd reason, sticking the bent knuckle of his index finger in the baby’s mouth.

“What in hell are you doing?” Kurt asks. “If this is some kind of Satanic ritual…”

“Shut it, princess,” Sebastian hisses through his teeth, smiling at the infant. “Your little man here is hungry and he needs a change. Do you have any…”

Kurt’s look of disbelief makes Sebastian chuckle.

“Diaper bag?” Sebastian clarifies.

“Uh…yeah.” Kurt turns back to the kitchen where the baby’s carrier sits on the kitchen table beside a blue bag that was originally obscured by the carrier’s canopy when they found the infant on their doorstep. “He came with this.”

Kurt grabs the bag off the table and walks over to Sebastian, who is in the process of laying the baby down on the couch.

“What do you mean?” Sebastian asks, making funny faces while he talks. “He isn’t a relative of yours?”

“Nope.” Kurt watches Sebastian take off the baby’s clothes, cringing with guilt when he sees the soaked onesie and saturated diaper. “We found him at the front door this morning. We don’t know who he belongs to.”

Sebastian wraps up the soiled diaper and holds it out to Kurt, who puts up his hands and takes a step back.

“Whoa…what do you want me to do with that?”

“Uh, throw it out?” Sebastian says, tossing it at Kurt who catches it on reflex, gagging at the overwhelming urine smell.

“Oh God,” he chokes, holding it between pinched fingers and racing it to the kitchen. He throws it into the trash can and follows it with a generous dose of Lysol spray.

“Jesus H, princess,” Sebastian groans, securing the fresh diaper’s Velcro closures, then rooting through the bag for a new outfit to replace the ruined one. “It’s just a baby, not a nuclear reactor.”

“Same thing to me,” Kurt grumbles, but he feels the tension in his shoulders disappear now that the loft is quiet for the first time in an hour.

“So, why did you volunteer to stay home alone with this guy if you hate kids?” Sebastian asks, shooting Kurt a sidelong glance as he fits a small arm through the sleeve of a Winnie the Pooh t-shirt.

Kurt’s eyes fall to his shoes.

“I didn’t,” he murmurs, “they just…they just left.”

“What do you mean they just left?” Sebastian’s voice sounds unexpectedly irritated, and even though their abandonment in his time of need burns him, Kurt feels the need to defend his friends.

“Well, Rachel has _Funny Girl_ rehearsals. It’s a big show…a big opportunity for her.”

_There. That sounds convincing._

“And Dapper Dan?”

The tone of Sebastian’s voice changes from aggravated to accusatory.

“He had a class. And dance rehearsal,” Kurt says simply.

 _A class he could have totally ditched and a rehearsal he could have rescheduled_ , Kurt thinks, but he doesn’t say it out loud.

From the look on Sebastian’s face, he doesn’t have to.

“He’s a dedicated student,” Kurt adds. “He’s up for a couple of big roles in the drama department. That’s rare for a freshman.”

“Yeah, well…” Sebastian moves on to putting on the baby’s pants, “… maybe today he should have played the role of dedicated fiancé.”

“You don’t understand,” Kurt says, hoping that will be the end of the discussion.

“Maybe I don’t.” Sebastian shrugs. “Maybe I don’t get the ins and outs of this drama that is your guys’ lives.” Sebastian unpacks the baby bottle and formula, and Kurt is amazed by how comfortable he seems with all this stuff that looks so alien to Kurt. “What I do know is that when I got here you were alone with a crying baby in your arms, on the verge of tears, with no fiancé to be found, and it seems like you’re trying a little too hard to convince me that he did nothing wrong.”

Both Kurt and the baby watch as Sebastian prepares a bottle of formula, measuring out the powder and pouring the in water while blocking the baby from rolling off the couch with his body.

“How did you learn to do…that?” Kurt asks, half out of curiosity and half out of a need to change the subject. Sebastian’s not wrong. Ever since Blaine moved in, Kurt has begun to realize how much he doesn’t adapt well to change or to new situations…or in some ways, to growing up. He’s a disaster at laundry, he doesn’t seem to know what a coupon is, and little things like the electric bill will often go unnoticed if Kurt doesn’t remind him at least twelve times before it needs to be paid. Most of the time Kurt simply breaks down and does it all himself, but he shouldn’t have to.

Sebastian hit the nail on the head.

Life in the loft _is_ a drama, with Blaine and Rachel as the stars, and Kurt…well, he’s just part of the supporting cast.

Sebastian picks up the baby, who’s already reaching out chubby grabby hands for the bottle. He sits on the couch and feeds the now quiet infant, watching with a smile as he starts to drift off to sleep.

“My brother’s kids,” he says. “He visits with his family every Christmas, and I always end up with the kids.” Kurt wants to make a joke, but Sebastian is opening up to him, something he’s never done before, so Kurt just nods.

He never knew that Sebastian had a brother…a brother with kids, no less.

Then again, this may be the longest real conversation Kurt’s ever had with Sebastian without having the overwhelming urge to claw his eyes out.

Kurt sits beside Sebastian in amazement as the baby falls to sleep.

“So, how are you guys going to handle having kids,” Sebastian whispers, “if one little baby brings you to tears?”

“Well, we’re not having kids tomorrow,” Kurt whispers. “By the time we want them, maybe I’ll be better at this. Or maybe we’ll just adopt older kids.”

“Ooo, my sister did that…adopted a five- and a six-year-old,” Sebastian reveals. “But she fostered for a long time and that can be a crap shoot. Some of those kids are pretty messed up. How old were you thinking?”

“I don’t know,” Kurt says. “How old do they start taking care of themselves?”

Sebastian laughs, the sound warm and genuine, and Kurt realizes that he’s never noticed how vibrant a shade of green Sebastian’s eyes are, or how the skin at the corners crinkles slightly when he laughs, or how Sebastian’s voice, when he isn’t cutting Kurt down, can be soft and soothing.

Before he knows it, he’s staring.

Sebastian catches him, raising an inquisitive eyebrow.

“I’m sorry,” Kurt says, turning to look down at the baby in Sebastian’s arms, hiding the pink in his cheeks. “I think this little guy tired me out.”

“Do you want to put your head down?” Sebastian offers. “Get a few z’s?”

The offer is so selfless, so…nice, that Kurt doesn’t know how to answer.

A knock at the door saves him. Kurt stands and steals once last look at Sebastian with the sleeping baby in his arms. He looks so normal, so sweet, so not like the Sebastian that Kurt has grown to despise venomously on a daily basis. Kurt never imagined there could be a hidden human side to Sebastian Smythe, and it makes him wonder.

Sebastian could have just been a dick and left, could have cracked a few more jokes and then split to hunt down Blaine, knowing Kurt had his hands full. But he stayed. He stayed to help _Kurt_.

He stayed to help Kurt when his best friend and his fiancé split on him.

A second knock and Kurt realizes he’s staring again. He hurries to the door and opens it, coming face to face with a familiar looking young woman in tears.

“Oh my God!” she manages between sobs, “please tell me…”

The woman is trying to peek past Kurt on tiptoes to look into the apartment and sees Sebastian on the couch, cradling the sleeping baby in his arms. She puts both hands to her face and cries harder.

“Thank God!” she whispers. “Thank God he’s here!”

Kurt moves aside in time for the woman to race by him without knocking him completely over and trampling him in an effort to get to her baby.

“Oh, Simon! Thank God you’re alright!”

She holds her hands out to Sebastian who is already standing and placing the infant delicately in her arms.

“Excuse me,” Kurt says, sounding a little more demanding than he should, but after over an hour of free babysitting he’s curious to know… “can you tell me how your son ended up on my doorstep?”

“I live in the building,” she explains, holding the sleeping baby so tight Kurt’s afraid for a moment that she might smother him by accident. “My mom was watching him, but she has dementia, and if she forgets her medication, sometimes she wanders off. I guess she dropped him off at your door before she left the building.”

“Uh…you might want to consider a more reliable babysitter,” Sebastian says to Kurt’s surprise. He was half-expecting him to cut the poor woman down for being irresponsible.

“I am,” she says. “It’s never been this bad before. But I promise, it’s the last time.”

Sebastian smiles, walking over to Kurt and putting a hand on his shoulder, and it feels natural…normal, like they could be acquaintances, or friends. Because strange, huge Atlas moths always flutter violently in your stomach when someone you hate who could turn into a friend puts a hand on your shoulder.

“Thank you,” the woman says, tears still brimming in her eyes, “you and your boyfriend, for watching my son.”

Kurt waits a moment before objecting, sure that Sebastian is about to set her straight.

“You’re welcome, miss,” is all he says.

The woman shoulders the small diaper bag and crosses the room to the kitchen to fetch the carrier.

“Let me help you with that,” Sebastian offers, grabbing the baby carrier before she can reach it. “You said you live in the building?”

“Yeah, but you’ve done so much already. I couldn’t ask you to…”

“You didn’t,” Sebastian says smoothly. “I offered. Come on.”

Kurt watches them leave, wondering when did Sebastian become so charming, so polite. How was all this hiding behind his CW hair and his meerkat face and Kurt never saw it?

Who was this man, and why did this new side of Sebastian seem to work its way under Kurt’s skin?

Sebastian turns over his shoulder before he closes the door.

“I’ll be right back, babe,” he calls with a wink, but it doesn’t sound like a mock or a taunt.

Kurt feels dizzy. All of a sudden, the world makes no sense.

This has to be a trick, and Kurt, in his weakened and frazzled state, is falling for it hook, line, and sinker.

The loft door opens not a second later and Blaine bustles in, pulling off his coat and smiling from ear to ear.

“Hello, Kurt,” he says brightly, rubbing his hands together as if he has the greatest news in the world. “Guess what?”

“What?” Kurt asks, but he’s not really listening. He’s still looking at the door waiting to see if Sebastian is actually going to return.

“I got it,” Blaine says, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

Kurt turns to him, brow furrowed, head shaking slowly.

“Got it?” he repeats.

“The role, Kurt. The one that I wanted.”

Blaine looks up into Kurt’s eyes, trying to trigger the memory of talking about it the night before.

“Robert?” Blaine prompts. “In _Company_?”

“Oh… _oh_ , that’s great, Blaine! Congratulations.”

The loft door slides open and Kurt turns just as Blaine leans in for a kiss, his lips missing their intended target and catching Kurt on the cheek.

“So, Lydia and Simon are safe and sound upstairs,” Sebastian announces, not noticing Blaine right away as he heads straight for Kurt. The minute he catches sight of Blaine clinging to Kurt’s arm, staring up at his fiancé like a punch-drunk puppy, Sebastian nearly skids to a halt, his smile dropping, and then twisting into a smirk that Kurt notices looks more like a mask than the real McCoy.

“Hello, tiger,” he says, “I didn’t see you there hiding under Kurt’s skirts.”

Sebastian is back. Sebastian the lech. Sebastian the bastard.

And Kurt’s heart twists in his chest.

“Hey, Seb,” Blaine says. “I didn’t know you were here.”

“Actually,” Kurt says, turning a bit and pulling Blaine into view, “he dropped by to see you, didn’t he?”

Kurt turns to Sebastian, he voice tight, almost bitter. Sebastian looks at Kurt, eyes shifting to Blaine, and then back to Kurt.

“Um…you know…it can wait.”

Sebastian’s eyes are full of an emotion Kurt can’t place as he backs away toward the door. “I think I’d better get going.”

“Let me walk you to the door.” Kurt presses a small kiss to Blaine’s forehead and notices Sebastian’s smile dip just a bit more.

Blaine heads for the kitchen while Kurt follows Sebastian to the door.

“What’s up, Hummel?” Sebastian asks. “Hoping for a kiss before I go?”

“I just wanted to say thanks…for helping me.”

Sebastian’s eyes soften again, that genuine smile making a brief appearance.

“You know, don’t read into it or anything,” Kurt continues, “but it was kind of nice hanging out with you.”

Sebastian nods.

“Maybe we can do it again sometime,” Sebastian says, talking mostly to his shoes, “you know, without the baby.”

“Wait, so is this you saying you want to be friends, because I don’t know how that’s going to work with you obsessively trying to get into my fiancé’s pants.”

Sebastian chuckles, his cheeks turning a shade darker. He lifts his eyes to peer at Kurt through a fan of brown lashes. Sebastian leans in, whispering into Kurt’s ear to make certain Blaine can’t overhear, “Just between you and me, babe…lately it’s not _his_ pants I’m trying to get into.”

Kurt’s mouth drops just as a pair of hands creep up Kurt’s back and onto his shoulders.

“So, Sebastian, do you want to come back later for dinner?” Blaine asks, a strange expression on his face as he looks between his fiancé and his sometime friend standing in the doorway, “as a thank you for helping Kurt. We’re making curry and then we’re going sing Showtunes.”

Kurt, facing away enough from Blaine to roll his eyes without being caught, does, but Sebastian catches it and laughs.

“Wow,” Sebastian says, “curry _and_ Showtunes? Now I know I have to get out of here.”

Kurt nods in understanding, with a look that screams, _‘It’s too late for me. Run now while you still can.’_

“Well, maybe next time then,” Blaine says, and Kurt doesn’t miss the way Blaine’s hands tighten on his shoulders possessively.

“Yeah. Next time.” Sebastian waves, just a slight movement of his hands as he looks from Kurt to Blaine, then turns and walks away.

Blaine squeezes Kurt’s shoulder again before turning back into the apartment.

Kurt slides the door shut, thinking of the last few times Sebastian has stopped by the loft unannounced – a few times when Blaine was at school, once when Blaine went back to Westerville to visit his folks, a few times in the morning catching Kurt before he left for his own classes at NYADA. Come to think of it, Kurt couldn’t remember the last time Sebastian had done anything other than stop by to harass him. His mind struggles to recall the last time Blaine mentioned seeing Sebastian.

Kurt feels the door stop, and he prepares to yank it the last foot or so.

A pair of soft lips capture his and his eyelids flutter shut, his entire body lit from the inside for just a second in response to the tongue that licks the seam of his mouth.

Kurt doesn’t think he has a single breath left in his body when those lips disappear.

When he opens his eyes and looks around, the hallway is empty, silent except for the sound of heavy footsteps racing down the staircase, but soon they’re gone, too.

Kurt lingers a little longer at the door wondering what will happen the next time he sees Sebastian Smythe.

 

 


	39. Join Me for Dinner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE READ THESE WARNINGS CAREFULLY! This fic is not gory or disgusting in anyway, but it’s for the anon prompt ‘cannibal’. The cannibalism is only mentioned in passing and at the very end, so if you just want to read some smutty flirting and food porn, read it up until Sebastian makes his phone call. Please do not read this through to the end and then get upset at me because it’s about cannibalism. I already told you. :/

Kurt watches Sebastian light the candles on the table and smiles, waiting for his host to sit before digging in to the mouthwatering meal spread out before him.

“You know,” Kurt says, fiddling with the edge of the scalloped tablecloth, “I’m glad you wore me down. These past two weeks have been amazing.”

Sebastian smirks, flicking the lid to the silver Zippo in his hand shut and shoving the lighter into his pocket.

“I’m just glad that after all this time you were finally willing to give me a chance.” Sebastian takes his seat across from Kurt and meets his gaze through the row of lined white tapers.

“I’m never going to believe for a second that you spent all that time at Dalton flirting with Blaine just to get my attention,” Kurt teases, his eyes darting down momentarily to the sumptuous dish of food waiting for him to take the first bite.

“I was, whether you believe it or not,” Sebastian admits with a shrug, pulling up his napkin and motioning for Kurt to do the same.

“Well, you’re full of surprises,” Kurt comments, rolling out his silverware and licking his lips, unaware of how carefully Sebastian watches him. “I would have never pictured you becoming a French chef.”

Sebastian grabs the bottle of wine from the center of the table and opens it, standing again to present it to Kurt.

“A Rare Red Four Grape Blend for your approval, monsieur,” he says as he pours Kurt a generous glass.

“Why, thank you, monsieur,” Kurt answers back, lifting the full glass in a toast. “Votre santé.”

“Votre santé,” Sebastian returns, raising his own glass in a toast. Kurt sticks his nose in the glass and sniffs, letting the aromas of chocolate and black fruit fill his senses before taking a sip, letting the alcohol slowly fill his mouth, wash over his tongue, and tingle down his throat.

“That’s smooth,” Kurt says with a sigh. “Sweet, but peppery.”

“You have an amazing palate.” Sebastian sits back in his seat, his eyes glued to Kurt’s mouth as he takes another sip. “You should come with me to California. If you’re a good boy, maybe we can visit the Scotto Cellar where this hails from.”

Kurt blushes, biting his lip as he looks back down at his plate.

“You know, _Culinary Trends_ magazine calls you the ‘Prince of Presentation’,” Kurt says, swiftly changing the subject, “and they’re not wrong. This looks absolutely gorgeous. How am I going to eat it? I mean, how did you even come up with this design? It’s exquisite.”

Kurt can’t keep his eyes off the symmetrically sliced meat, perfectly blackened and drizzled with a thick, savory smelling brown sauce. It’s a relatively simple meal, but it’s the intricate details that put the overall appeal over the top.

“Well, the pearls around the edge are completely edible,” Sebastian points out with the tip of his steak knife, “and I chose them because they remind me of your beautiful, smooth, flawless skin.”

Sebastian lifts one onto the edge of his knife and offers it to Kurt. Kurt blinks down at it and swallows hard. His eyes dart back up to meet Sebastian’s dark, hooded gaze, and Sebastian can see a flicker of fear.

“Go ahead,” Sebastian purrs. “Trust me. Walk on the wild side.”

Kurt smiles, a grin that twists from scared to sultry with just a blink, and Kurt slips the knife between his teeth, letting the pearl drop off the sharp tip into his mouth. Sebastian moans when Kurt bites into it with a loud crunch, watching Kurt’s mouth move as he devours it greedily.

“Excellent,” Sebastian whispers. “Now, the silver beads are also edible, and they remind me of your stunning eyes.” Sebastian collects a silver bead onto his knife the same way, and this time Kurt sucks it off without a second thought, time closing his lips gently around it, the color of Sebastian’s eyes deepening immediately as he watches.

“And the orchids…” Sebastian reaches across the table and plucks one of the vibrant white and purple flowers off the meat, whispering in a voice that is dangerous and rough, full of restrained lust, “represent the parts of you…the soft, intimate parts of you that I am dying to taste…”

He leans across the table and drags the petals of the flower across Kurt’s lips, and this time Kurt moans, letting his eyelids flutter shut and chasing the flower with a sweep of his tongue. Sebastian grins wickedly when he sees Kurt shift in his seat, crossing his legs beneath the table.

“S-so…this whole meal…is about me?” Kurt stutters, opening his eyes again to find Sebastian still staring at him with that same hungry, unabashed stare.

“You and only you,” Sebastian says, gesturing to the plate with a flourish of his hand. “The cut of meat, the sauce, the decor…it’s all about you. No one…and I mean no one else will ever eat this meal.”

Kurt would have laughed if not for the sinister look in Sebastian’s eyes that told Kurt every word he spoke was the truth.

“Please,” Sebastian pleads, “take a bite. Let me watch you enjoy.”

Kurt lifts his knife and fork in almost trembling hands as he cuts through the meat. It’s tender, pulling apart, melting like butter beneath the metal of his knife. He skewers the small portion and runs it through the sauce once, taking his time, drawing out the seduction, all too aware of Sebastian’s eyes on him, his hands gripping onto the edge of the table as he waits, watching Kurt lift the fork to his lips to take the first bite.

The meat slips between his lips, onto his tongue. The combination of sweet and savory tingle his taste buds, and Kurt whimpers.

Sebastian watches Kurt chew; watches how the beautiful, long column of his throat works as he swallows; how Kurt’s eyes darken with the effects of the Burgundy in the sauce.

“Oh, Sebastian,” Kurt sighs, breathless, “that’s…that’s like a kiss…or…it’s just…”

“Excellent,” Sebastian whispers again, lifting his knife and fork to take his own bite.

***

“Thank you, Sebastian,” Kurt says, breathless after the amazing meal. “That was incredible.”

“I’m glad you appreciate my creations so much.” Sebastian takes Kurt’s hand and walks him to the door. “It’s nice to have someone to cook for.”

“You cook for thousands of people,” Kurt says with a laugh.

“True,” Sebastian agrees, “but I only _create_ for you.”

Sebastian take Kurt’s hand in his, lifting it to his mouth, and presses his lips to the soft skin. Kurt’s eyelids narrow, his cheeks pinking furiously. He wants so much more than Sebastian’s lips brushing against just the back of his hand. Sebastian straightens, and Kurt surprises him, stepping forward and kissing him, capturing his lips gently, sliding their mouths together. Sebastian wraps his arms around him, holding him close, breathing him in and slipping his tongue into his mouth, taking a lazy moment to taste him.

“You know,” Kurt says, talking quietly against Sebastian’s mouth, “I would love to join you in California…if the offer stands.”

Sebastian smiles so Kurt can feel it against his skin.

“You know it does,” he says, kissing Kurt again, kissing him more, talking between presses of his lips and searching sweeps of his tongue. “It will be amazing, I promise. We’ll drink wine, and I’ll cook for you every night.”

“Mmmm, I can’t wait.”

Kurt kisses him again – one last, longing kiss to say good-night on; a kiss to remember him by.

Sebastian hums when Kurt finally finds the strength to pull away and say his last good-bye.

“What is it?” Kurt asks, watching Sebastian lick his lips.

Sebastian leans into Kurt’s ear, nibbling his earlobe gently and sighs, “You taste delicious.”

Kurt bites his lip and backs away, taking one last look at his gorgeous boyfriend, holding his hands as long as he can, fingertips sliding out of reach.

“Good-night,” Kurt says again.

Sebastian watches Kurt get into his Navigator, start his car, and drive away.

The words sink in.

Kurt is going with him to California.

This is it. This will definitely be the trip that seals the deal, and Sebastian can’t wait.

He sees a future for him and Kurt – traveling around the world, visiting exciting locales, sampling wines, making love under the stars.

He wants desperately to make Kurt see it, too.

This trip to the West Coast is the first step, and it needs to be special; needs to be perfect.

Sebastian drops down on his couch and takes out his iPhone, dialing his number one supplier.

“Hey, Sebastian!” Chandler’s voice sings over the line, the name sounding long winded and whiny in Chandler’s nasally voice, ending with an unnecessary pop on the final ‘n’. “How was dinner with _your man_?”

Sebastian relishes the sting of jealousy in Chandler’s voice. So many times Chandler thought that Sebastian would fall in love with him, but he was just a stepping stone in helping him get Kurt.

“Our little friend Azimio turned out a lot better than I had hoped,” Sebastian says.

“Thank God!” Chandler groans dramatically. “I was afraid he was going to turn out a little tough.”

“Nope, not at all. Not after I cooked his ass for twelve fucking hours. And Chandler…the wine…” Sebastian shakes his head and chuckles. “How in the hell did you manage to find the perfect vintage to compliment ‘aging athlete’?”

Chandler makes a high-pitched whining sound and Sebastian knows the compliments are working.

“It’s just a talent, I guess.”

“Well, it’s a good one,” Sebastian says condescendingly.

“An indispensable one, I hope,” Chandler hedges, his voice suddenly meek and small. Sebastian rolls his eyes, knowing what Chandler’s hinting at.

“I’d never eat _you_ , Chandler,” Sebastian says with a note of exasperation. “I need you too much. Besides, there’s nothing on that ass of yours to eat anyway.”

Chandler chuckles in a way that disgusts even Sebastian.

“Are you ever going to tell him?” Chandler asks.

“Nope,” Sebastian says quickly. “And neither will you, or bony ass or no you’ll end up a fucking side dish. Do you understand?”

“Of course, Sebastian,” Chandler sputters nervously. “Don’t be silly. I was just curious.”

“Good.” Sebastian hovers close to the phone as if Chandler is actually there to witness the gravity of Sebastian’s revelation on his face. “Okay, now I want you to listen carefully, Chandler, because this is important. I have an extra special trip coming up. I’m taking Kurt to California with me.”

“Ooo la la!” Chandler chirps.

“Ooo la la, indeed,” Sebastian says. “So, I need bigger this time.”

“Bigger?” Chandler asks, sounding thoroughly perplexed. “You’ve already served him Dave and Azimio. They were, like, the biggest bullies at McKinley. Who else are you going to find bigger than those two? Especially out in California?”

“Think about it, Chandler.” Sebastian stands from the couch and paces anxiously. “I need to make a statement without saying a word…I need you to get me… _Blaine Anderson_.”

 


	40. Talk Me Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here’s a one-shot that’s a combination anon prompt and personal inspiration. The prompt is suicide, and just so you know, this one has a happy ending, so no worries. But the personal inspiration is a story I once heard about a young woman talking a teenaged boy out of killing himself. Futurefic, fluff, angst, hurt/comfort, emotional hurt/comfort, mention of suicide.

Kurt doesn’t understand how exactly he has managed to get so completely lost. He has an in-dash GPS. He has Google maps on his phone. Everything the overtly seductive female computer voices say to him makes sense, but he still can’t find the highway. He drives around for over an hour, but no matter which turn he takes, which fork in the road he chooses, he ends up at the same sketchy, abandoned bridge. Every time before he crosses, driving excruciatingly slowly over the wide-set slats, he holds his breath, muttering curses in his head, scared for his life.

A light mist falls on his windshield as he approaches the bridge for what has to be the fifteenth time. He is so focused on just making it to the other side that he barely notices the figure of a man on the outer ledge of the bridge, inching across toward the center. Kurt looks once, then twice to make sure that his mind isn’t playing tricks on him, and that he is indeed seeing an impeccably dressed man in a $4,000 Lora Piana cashmere trench coat walking along the outside of the bridge, hands gripping tight to the railing, eyes trained on the rocks and water far below.

Kurt pulls his car to a stop at the mouth of the bridge, stunned, waiting to see if this stranger has some ulterior motive for tip-toing precariously along the narrow edge of a 19th century railroad bridge other than the obvious, because no one commits suicide in this day and age by flinging themselves off of bridges anymore, right? Not when there are guns…and drugs…and _living_ as an alternative.

The man walks for about a quarter of a mile, then stops and very carefully slides down, sitting on one of the jutting ties with a leg on either side, hands gripping the iron railing behind him, staring off into the distance.

Kurt gasps. He doesn’t know the protocol for what to do if you find a man standing on the edge of a bridge, looking like he is preparing to jump. He considers calling 9-1-1, but his phone, which seemed to have full bars just a minute ago, is now completely out of its service area. Kurt sighs. He usually tries not to get involved in other people’s problems, but he knows what hopelessness looks like, and there it is, wearing Ferragamo wing-tips, preparing to end it all.

Kurt starts his car and drives slowly across the bridge, trying not to startle the man, but as Kurt approaches, the man doesn’t seem to notice…or maybe he just doesn’t care. Kurt pulls his car to a stop and kills the engine. He opens the door and for the first time Kurt is hit with the full-force of the freezing night air, the wind immediately tearing through his hair and over his skin like shards of ice. He shivers uncontrollably, and wraps his wool coat tight around his shoulders, slipping gloves on his hands and winding a scarf around his neck. He looks over his shoulder at the man on the bridge, his coat unbuttoned, exposing his body to the elements; no scarf, no gloves, not much protection at all from the pervasive gusting wind and the plunging temperature.

He shuts the door and walks over to the railing, waiting in the silence to see if the man will turn around and take notice. Standing on the slats with both feet crowding the wooden railroad tie, Kurt finally sees for himself just how narrow the space the man occupies is, and a hard lump grows in his throat.

After several tense minutes, his teeth chattering painfully in his mouth, Kurt decides to speak.

“Hey,” Kurt calls out, hoping to be heard over the rush of the wind. “Whatcha doing there?”

Kurt rolls his eyes at his lame question, but really? What was he supposed to say?

The man glances over his shoulder, taking a quick sidelong view of Kurt standing behind him. He grimaces, turning away.

“I’m admiring the view,” the man spits back. “Now, run along, princess.”

Kurt takes a slight step back at the tone of the man’s voice – so harsh, so venomous - but Kurt can’t bring himself to leave. A few more tense minutes later, and the man turns back around, furious this time.

“Are you lost?” he growls.

Kurt chances a step forward.

“Yes, actually,” he says quickly. “I’m trying to make my way back to the interstate, but I keep ending up on this fucking bridge, so if you’re not too busy, could you give me directions so I can get out of here?”

The man’s green eyes almost pop out of his head when Kurt finishes speaking, his lips slowly twisting into a sardonic grin. He looks Kurt up and down from the top of his upswept hair to the toes of his thick, Doc Marten boots.

“I’m Sebastian,” the man says, letting go of his grip on the railing and extending his hand towards Kurt. “Sebastian Smythe.”

Kurt’s heart thrums nervously at the vision of Sebastian hanging one-handed from the rickety metal railing. He takes another step forward and shakes Sebastian’s hand, wondering if there might be some way he could pull the man back over, but Sebastian yanks his hand back too quickly for Kurt to put any sort of plan into action.

“I’m Kurt. Kurt Hummel.”

“Well, Kurt Kurt Hummel,” Sebastian says, “if you’re looking for the interstate, you’re about 12 miles too far north. You’re going to go back the way you came, make a left at the first stop sign, and keep going.”

It sounds more like a command than simply directions.

Sebastian is telling Kurt to leave.

“Thanks a bunch,” Kurt says. He walks up to the railing and sits down on the concrete divider, cringing in his head at the tiny voice that screams, _‘Don’t you dare sit on the filthy ground! These are brand new jeans!’_

The devilish smirk on Sebastian’s face turns back into a scowl as Sebastian watches him settle daintily on the ground.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he snarls.

Kurt meets his glare with narrowed eyes.

“I’m tired,” Kurt says evenly. “I’ve been driving for hours and I need a break.”

“Take a break somewhere else,” Sebastian challenges.

“It’s a free country,” Kurt counters. “This isn’t your bridge. I can sit here if I want.”

Sebastian sighs heavily, deciding to give up and do his best at simply ignoring the annoying interloper until he realizes this is pointless and goes away.

Kurt peeks at Sebastian covertly as he looks down at his gloved hands, trying his best to not peer past the wooden slats. He thinks he might know this man, but he can’t remember from where.

Seeing as Sebastian is determined not to talk, Kurt decides to take a chance and strike up a conversation.

“I feel like I’ve seen you before,” Kurt says.

“Maybe,” Sebastian replies vaguely.

Kurt leans his head to the side against the railing as far as he can, craning to see Sebastian’s face fully, and Sebastian turns away, but at the last minute Kurt manages to place his face.

“I know you!” Kurt crows. “I just saw your picture in the paper! You’re that steel magnate’s son, the one he… _oh_ …”

Kurt stops his sentence short, clamping his teeth down on his tongue unless his addled brain thinks of anything else stupid to say.

“Yup, that’s me!” Sebastian says bitterly.

Kurt holds his breath, wondering if Sebastian will just say ‘Fuck it!’ and throw himself overboard.

He looks like he’s seriously considering it.

Instead, he relaxes back against railing, and Kurt finds it easier to breathe again.

“You know, I always knew my father was a bastard,” Sebastian says, “but I never thought for one second that he would disown me for being gay.”

Kurt moves in closer, relieved to hear Sebastian opening up but also scared that this is it; Sebastian telling his side of the story before he ends his life.

“So, that’s why you’re here?” Kurt asks softly, not wanting to open wounds, but needing to keep Sebastian talking as long as possible, to try and find a way to get him off the ledge.

“No,” Sebastian says with another bitter laugh. “No. I don’t think he ever really cared too much about me, so not being his son anymore doesn’t really change anything.”

“Then…what is it?” Kurt pries gently. “Is it the money?”

Kurt remembers reading the article when he saw it on the front page of the paper. Even if it wasn’t for the salacious and dramatic headline, how could he miss the picture – a blurry but still nearly X-rated picture – of a half-naked Sebastian climbing all over his reported lover while sun bathing on a nude beach in the south of France. Dillon Smythe, Sebastian’s father, had not only disowned his son, but left him with nothing, pulling (among other things) a trust fund estimated at almost two million dollars and several multimillion dollar properties.

Sebastian doesn’t seem to hear, but before Kurt can move on to a different question, Sebastian takes a deep breath, letting it out through pursed lips. Kurt can see the cloud his breath creates in the frigid air.

“I don’t really need the money,” he starts. “I mean, it was nice, but I have a good job. I actually make quite a lot.” Sebastian winks at Kurt over his shoulder, and Kurt can’t help feeling his cheeks heat up a bit. “I have a penthouse my grandparents left me, and try as he might, my dad can’t legally take it away from me…”

Kurt furrows his brow, confused beyond belief.

“So, if you don’t need the trust fund, why are you up here?”

Sebastian’s next statement is spoken so softly that Kurt almost doesn’t hear him over the constantly swirling wind.

“Because he left.”

Kurt racks his brain, trying to remember who _he_ might be.

“He…who? The man in the picture?”

Sebastian nods sadly.

“Yeah.” Sebastian’s hand tightens around the metal bar he’s holding on to. “Paolo. He was with me since college. We’ve been together forever. I thought he loved me. Turns out, that wasn’t entirely the case.”

“But…I don’t get it,” Kurt says, shaking his head. “You still have money, a place to live…that’s more than most people have.”

“Yeah, well, I guess it isn’t enough. My money isn’t enough. I’m not enough.”

Kurt feels himself trembling, but he doesn’t know if it’s from anger or the overwhelming, biting cold. He imagines it’s the former since he stopped feeling the cold a long time ago.

“Then he’s not worth it,” Kurt says. “He’s a gold-digging leech that’s not worth your time.”

Sebastian doesn’t respond, doesn’t turn to acknowledge him, and that makes Kurt even angrier.

“And, to tell you the truth, Sebastian…you’re being an ass!”

That gets Sebastian’s attention.

“Excuse me, princess?” Sebastian asks with a dangerous look in his eyes.

“You heard me. You’re going to throw it all away for some…some asswipe? You have everything! You’re rich…ish, you probably have had the benefit of some kind of overpriced education, you’re gorgeous…”

Sebastian’s face immediately melts, and a beautiful, albeit cocky, grin lights up his face.

“You think I’m gorgeous?”

Kurt’s eyes widen, and his face, thankfully obscured by the dark night, grows even hotter.

“Not now,” Kurt sputters. He turns away to look out at the horizon, feeling Sebastian’s eyes watch him, that megawatt smile still glowing in his direction, “you’re still an ass.”

Sebastian chuckles.

“You know, for a Good Samaritan, you kind of suck at this.”

Kurt suddenly feels bold, pulling out all the stops in an effort to get Sebastian off the ledge before it’s too late and he falls into the water purely by accident.

“Between you and me,” Kurt says, leaning closer to Sebastian’s hand where it is latched to the railing, letting his hot breath ghost over the visibly frozen skin, “I’m not all that good.”

Sebastian swallows hard, his smile dipping only slightly when his eyes start to simmer with a new and exciting heat.

Sebastian stares at Kurt, can’t seem to stop staring, but some other emotion passes over his face, cooling the heat in his eyes, and for a reason Kurt can’t explain, he turns away.

He suspects that Sebastian figured out his ploy.

Kurt’s heart sinks. It would have been nice if it had worked. Kurt knows it’s a long shot, but he’s starting to like Sebastian. Outside of not wanting to see another human being of the Earth planet kill themselves, it would be nice if a guy like Sebastian – intelligent, kind, handsome, caring – would give Kurt a chance.

Kurt knows what it’s like to want to jump off a ledge.

He spent most of his high school years talking himself down from them.

“So, what are _you_ doing out here this late at night?” Sebastian asks. “Or do you just make it a habit of trolling bridges, looking for potential lost souls to help?”

“I usually avoid bridges when I can,” Kurt reveals without a second thought, wrapping his own gloved hand around the railing on the bar above Sebastian’s.

“Why?” Sebastian scoffs. “Afraid of heights?”

Kurt waits for the echo of the taunt to fade from his ears before he answers.

“My mom died on a bridge.”

Sebastian’s head snaps around to look at Kurt, assessing his face shrewdly to see if he’s lying, to see if this is another trick. Kurt’s eyes stay glued to the sky, and Sebastian sighs.

Maybe he is an ass.

“I…I’m s-sorry, man,” Sebastian says for lack of anything more poignant or philosophical to say. His teeth clatter when he speaks, his whole face numb.

“That’s alright,” Kurt replies with a shrug. “It was a long time ago. You didn’t know.”

Kurt feels a hand close around his. When he looks, Sebastian’s stiff fingers are covering Kurt’s gloved hand in an effort to be comforting. Kurt can feel his gelid fingers, the nails already turning blue, the waxy pallor to his skin, and Kurt knows he’s running out of time. In another half hour, it won’t matter if Sebastian jumps or not. He’s going to end up with hypothermia, and Kurt isn’t sure he can climb out on the ledge to get to him.

“To tell you the truth, I’m kind of a lost soul myself,” Kurt confesses. “I’m sort of running away from my life.”

“R-really?”

“Yeah,” Kurt says, wrapping his free hand over Sebastian’s frozen one. “Someone I love…someone I thought I’d love forever…broke my heart.” Kurt rubs gently over Sebastian’s skin, encouraged when he doesn’t pull away and lets Kurt continue to warm his skin.

“Wh-what did he do?” Sebastian asks, his voice wobbly, his breath shuddering. Kurt considers trying to walk over to where Sebastian’s back leans against the railing to wrap his scarf around his neck, but he’s afraid to let go of his hand just in time to watch him fall.

“He cheated on me,” Kurt says, creeping his hands up Sebastian’s arms as far as he can reach to rub at the nearly paralyzed limb. “He thought I was going to leave him, so he slept with someone else. Someone he met on Facebook.”

Sebastian rolls his head on his shoulders and squints to focus on Kurt, and Kurt can see that Sebastian’s lips are chapped and blue.

“D-d-d-douche,” Sebastian stutters. “Y-you d-don’t n-need him. Y-you s-s-seem like a gr-great g-guy.”

Kurt smiles sheepishly, concocting another plan.

“Do you really think so?” Kurt asks, removing one hand from Sebastian’s arm to grab hold of his hand.

Sebastian tries to nod, but his whole upper body quakes, and Kurt reacts quickly, squeezing his hand tight, just in case falls.

“I-I d-d-do,” Sebastian says. “I qu-question y-your h-h-hairdo a-and y-y-your t-t-taste in cl-clothes…”

Kurt frowns, trying hard to keep his bitch side at bay.

“…b-but I th-think you-re gr-gr-great.”

“Then, Sebastian,” Kurt says, quiet but firm. “Come with me.”

Sebastian stares, his body trembles so violently now that Kurt can’t tell if he’s shaking his head no or nodding yes, but he doesn’t speak. His mouth is locked tight, breath coming in ragged puffs through his nose.

“I don’t care about your money. I don’t care if your dad disowned you. If you and I met at a bar or a coffee shop or anywhere in the world, I would like you because you seem like an amazing guy, and I want to get to know you. I do, Sebastian. So, will you give me that chance?”

Sebastian still doesn’t speak, but Kurt can see his legs start to work, knees trying to bend. He hears the railing rattle as Sebastian pulls at it weakly. Kurt springs into action, leaping over to where most of Sebastian’s body rests against the railing, panicking for a second when he is forced to let go in order to get a better grip. He pulls with all his might, and for several nerve-wracking and back-breaking minutes supports Sebastian’s weight as he pulls himself to his feet, the struggle and the strain seeming to loosen stiff muscles enough for Sebastian to get upright. But now, standing straight, with his hips leaning against the railing, he stops again, eyes fixed on the rocks beneath him.

“Wh-what’s the matter?” Kurt says, manic now that the end is so near.

“I…I’m afraid of heights.”

“Afraid of heights?” Kurt cries with the shadow of a laugh. “Weren’t you just making fun of me for being afraid of heights?”

“Kurt…”

“I mean, you’re on a bridge…”

“Kurt…”

“What kind of idiot throws themselves off a bridge if they’re afraid of heights?”

“The kind that’s not thinking, alright?” Sebastian yells, cutting Kurt short. “I mean, that’s why I was up here, right? But, now I’m scared, Kurt. So, please…I just want to come with you, but…”

Sebastian’s vulnerability tugs on Kurt’s heart like a thread. He didn’t mean to be so cruel, but all the pent up anxiety let itself loose without Kurt’s ability to stop it. He has to do something, but he’s more than feeling the effects of too much time sitting in one spot in the cold, too, and he’s running out of strength. Sebastian’s hands are locked to the railing now, and with his mind focusing on not falling, Kurt doesn’t think he’ll let go long enough for Kurt to help him across.

He has a thought, a fleeting thought that turns into a solution. Kurt cups a hand beneath Sebastian’s chin and pulls the attention of his terror-stricken green eyes up to Kurt’s more confident blue ones. He leans in close, brushing their noses together, Sebastian’s skin startlingly frigid, and kisses him. Kurt can hear Sebastian gasp when their mouths connect. Sebastian’s lips are cold, quivering, but Kurt deepens the kiss, trying his hardest to pass along whatever warmth he has left, whatever calm he possesses. Soon, Sebastian’s lips are warmer, more pliant against his.

Kurt sucks Sebastian’s top lip into his mouth, and Sebastian whines in the back of his throat. Kurt reaches out a hand and grabs Sebastian’s arm, leading him around, tugging at him gently and offering him support as he climbs over the rail, chasing Kurt’s lips with his mouth, eager to take control. When he’s safe over the railing, Sebastian wraps his arms around Kurt’s body and Kurt, trying to keep focus with the intensity of Sebastian’s mouth claiming his, unwinds his scarf carefully and wraps it around Sebastian’s neck. Sebastian leans Kurt back, his tongue slipping smoothly into Kurt’s mouth to caress his, and Kurt’s knees go weak, fingers struggling to do up the buttons of Sebastian’s coat.

Sebastian feels Kurt helping him, feels himself getting warmer as his coat is closed up and a scarf placed around his neck.

“Thank you,” he whispers into Kurt’s mouth, not ready to break away from this paragon in his arms, who came to his rescue when he thought he had no one.

“Why don’t you thank me later when we get off of this bridge?” Kurt suggests, and if it sounds a little like an invitation, then that might have been intentional.

“You really want me to come with you?” Sebastian asks, unsure. “It’s not an act?”

Kurt looks up into Sebastian’s eyes, clear and impossibly green, shining from the cold in the air and the heat of their kiss.

“I want you to come with me,” Kurt says.

Sebastian smiles, and Kurt pulls away. Sebastian takes Kurt’s hand and lets himself be lead over to Kurt’s car.

“You know,” Sebastian says, feeling more himself now than he has in weeks, “I’m kind of clingy. You saved my life. I might not want to let you go.”

Kurt unlocks the car door and gives Sebastian a shove to get him inside.

Sebastian sits obediently and locks the door, waiting patiently for Kurt to climb in on the driver’s side.

“Didn’t someone once say that relationships that start because of crisis situations are doomed to failure?”

“Yup,” Sebastian confirms as Kurt buckles up his seat belt and starts the car. “That’s why for us, no relationship. We’re just going to fuck.”

Kurt laughs as he drives quickly off the bridge, following Sebastian’s directions to the interstate, not quite so lost anymore.


	41. A Friend of a Friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the anon prompt: 'Hunter tries to set Kurt and Sebastian up'. Here is a first try at this one. I hope you guys like it :)
> 
> Hunter tries to get Sebastian to go on a blind date with his girlfriend’s friend. Futurefic, College AU

Hunter drops a heavy stack of books on the desk in front of Sebastian to get his attention. It doesn’t work, but he knew it wouldn’t. Hunter leans down low, watching Sebastian continue to work on his Calculus assignment as if Hunter doesn’t even exist.

“I found you a guy, Sebby,” Hunter whispers with a self-satisfied smirk on his face.

“No,” Sebastian says without looking up.

“He’s a friend of my girlfriend, Quinn,” Hunter barrels on as if Sebastian hadn’t even voiced an objection. “He’s studying musical theater at NYADA…”

“Pfft…” Sebastian closes his book with a disgusted scoff. Realizing Hunter is not about to drop the subject, Sebastian decides to try and make a quick getaway.

“What ‘pfft’?” Hunter asks, taking up the chase. “You haven’t even seen him. I have, and I have to say, he’s pretty hot.”

“Musical theater equals drama queen and more than likely _flaming_ drama queen,” Sebastian explains, shoving his way through the double-doors of the NYU library in an attemp to evade his annoying friend. “And how do you know if he’s hot or not? Aren’t you the man who claimed he wasn’t even remotely bi-curious?”

“Hey,” Hunter says, dodging behind Sebastian as he tries to lose him through a crowd of cursing students as he walks against the flow of traffic, “I don’t have to be gay to recognize a hot piece of ass when I see it, and man, oh man, does he got one.”

“Hunter, you have no idea just how gay you sound right now.”

“Come on, Seb,” Hunter whines, “give him a chance. You owe me.”

“How do you figure that?”

Sebastian stops walking, with Hunter coming up short and almost running into him from behind.

“Do I need to mention a certain ass tattoo I now have from the last time you got me drunk and left me at the Gamma Theta Nu frat house during pledge week when you PROMISED you’d keep an eye on me?”

“I’d say that tattoo was a lesson well learned,” Sebastian says, taking off again with Hunter hot on his heels. “You put your trust in the wrong person.”

“Sebastian…”

“Besides,” Sebastian railroads ahead, “tattoos can be removed, but clingy blind dates, they’re much harder and more painful to get rid of.”

Hunter manages to leap ahead of the taller man, putting out his hands to stop him.

“Please,” Hunter pleads, looking desperate, “just give him a chance.”

“Why are you even doing this?” Sebastian asks.

“Can’t I just try and set my best friend up with a great guy out of the goodness of my heart?” Hunter blinks up at Sebastian innocently.

“You have no heart that science has been yet to identify,” Sebastian deadpans.

Hunter’s shoulders drop in defeat.

“Look, I promised Quinn I’d find a date for her friend, and I really think the two of you could hit it off. So come on, what do you say?”

Sebastian hedges, thinking it over for a moment, watching the hope build in Hunter’s eyes.

“Nope,” he says decisively, pushing past Hunter and running face first into someone, knocking them to the ground.

“What the fuck!?” a shrill voice screams. “Look where the hell you’re going!”

“What the fuck are you PMS’ing for?” Sebastian retorts. “It was just an accident.”

“Yeah, an accident that wouldn’t have happened if you could learn to pay attention.”

Sebastian watches the pale man stand up, long legs stretching in the tightest jeans Sebastian has ever seen painted onto another human being, meeting at an ass that could make a grown man drop to his knees and beg. Sebastian doesn’t realize he’s staring, because he’s never gawked at another man before. Sure, he’s used to being stared at, but Sebastian Smythe doesn’t stare.

Except now he is definitely staring.

The view gets better when the man finally stands completely upright. Narrow hips, a trim waist, and muscular upper arms only partially obscured by the sleeves of a pale blue button down shirt, the top two buttons undone; the soft, soothing color complimenting the most startling blue eyes Sebastian has ever seen. Right now, though, it’s this man’s perfect mouth that has Sebastian’s undivided attention, as it curses to put every truck driver in the tri-state area worth his salt to shame.

“…make you pay for the fucking dry cleaning.”

Silence.

Sebastian shakes his head, only vaguely aware that the gorgeous, bow shaped lips have stopped moving.

“Come again, princess?” Sebastian says, trying to gain a little of the upper hand that he lost during the course of this one-sided bitch fight.

The man peers at Sebastian through narrow eyelids.

“Do you actually even attend school here?” he says coolly. “Because if you do, I’d seriously consider asking for your money back.”

Sebastian has a thousand barbs in his arsenal, all waiting on standby for just such an occasion, but not a single one manages to make it to his mouth once the man spins around on his heel, brushing long fingers over that masterpiece of an ass as he dusts off his jeans, and storms away.

“What a fucking princess,” Sebastian says, but it’s the tone of almost awe in his voice, the way his jaw drops, the mesmerized expression on his face that makes Hunter’s lips curls into a triumphant grin. He’s never seen that look on Sebastian Smythe’s face, but he sure as hell knows what it means.

“That _princess_ is Kurt Hummel. Quinn’s friend,” Hunter clarifies.

Sebastian doesn’t say anything in response as he cranes his head over the oncoming crowd of students to watch that ass for as long as he can while Kurt sashays away.

“So, what do you think?” Hunter asks, crossing his arms smugly over his chest.

“I think,” Sebastian says, clamping a hand onto Hunter’s shoulder even though he doesn’t turn to address him, “that you live to be a douche another day.”


	42. God Bless the King

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One-shot for the anon prompt 'paredolia' 
> 
> Kurt is going down on his boyfriend when he comes face to face with an interesting birthmark.
> 
> Warnings for oral.
> 
> (Pareidolia - is a type of illusion or misperception involving a vague or obscure stimulus being perceived as something clear and distinct for example - seeing the face of Jesus in a grilled cheese sandwich)

“Sebastian?” Kurt peeks up with concerned eyes from where he kneels between his boyfriend’s legs. “Sebastian…what is this?”

Sebastian peeks down at him, his eyebrow raised at the awkward question.

“That, Kurt," Sebastian says, “is my dick. And from where you are the best thing to do is stick it in your mouth and…”

“I’m not talking about that, you ass!” Kurt hisses, smacking Sebastian on the hip. “I mean this here…

Kurt runs a gentle finger over a spot on Sebastian’s inner thigh, barely able to enjoy the small tremor that travels through Sebastian at his touch over the thread of worry in his mind.

Sebastian sighs.

“Is it splotchy and kind of beige?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Kurt says, still eyeing it warily.

“It’s just a birthmark, babe,” Sebastian says dismissively, putting a hand to the back of Kurt’s head and trying to redirect him to the task at hand. Kurt shrugs the hand off and Sebastian huffs in frustration as his hard-on withers a bit.

“Have you even seen this?” Kurt asks, relaxing at his boyfriend’s reassurance.

“Kurt…” Sebastian eyes the ceiling, trying to think erotic thoughts until his boyfriend gets his head back in the game, “I’m pretty flexible, but as previous adventures in self-fellacio have proven to me, I in no way can examine the spot you’re looking at with my own eyes.”

“You could use a mirror, doofus,” Kurt groans, delivering another smack, this one to Sebastian’s ass.

 _That_ brought his hard-on back.

“What would be the fun in that?” Sebastian asks. “Besides, I had a dermatologist check it out. It’s okay. So now that we know that I’m healthy, can we get back to…”

“Do you know it kind of looks like Elvis?” Kurt asks, tilting his head and giggling.

“You mean, like the King?” Sebastian peeks back down at Kurt, this time a little curious himself.

“Yeah.” Kurt runs a finger around the outline, and Sebastian moans.

“Young Elvis or old Elvis?”

Sebastian reaches down and wraps his fingers around his cock, pumping slowly. He can’t help it – Kurt’s light touches against his skin, his breath so close to where he wants Kurt’s mouth to be…Sebastian’s cock is desperate for attention.

Kurt sees Sebastian’s hand and brushes it away, replacing it with his own.

“It looks like hot…sexy…young Elvis…” Kurt runs a tongue around the edge of the birthmark, licking, kissing, and sucking while he speaks, working over Sebastian’s growing erection with deliberate strokes of his fist.

“D-does that turn you on?” Sebastian stutters, dying to rib Kurt really bad about what could be a brand new fetish, but he doesn’t want to risk losing that hand on his cock and Kurt’s talented mouth so achingly close to his balls.

“Would that be strange if it does?” Kurt moans against his skin. “Because if it’s not strange, this could become my favorite activity…” Kurt wraps his lips around Sebastian’s balls and sucks lightly, licking gently with his tongue. Sebastian’s back arches off the bed, and every taunt he can think of dies in his throat.

“N-no,” he mutters quickly. “No, not strange at all. Completely normal. Do that whenever you want…”

Kurt smiles, stroking Sebastian faster, thrilled by the low whine it elicits.

“Whenever I want?” Kurt asks, pulling only far enough away to be heard.

“Yup,” Sebastian whimpers, trying to get Kurt to go back. “Far be it for me to deny another Elvis fan.”

“ _Another_ Elvis fan?” Kurt chuckles. “I didn’t know you were a fan of Elvis.”

“O-oh yeah,” Sebastian stammers, managing to wiggle his way back into his boyfriend's mouth, “he’s been my absolute fave for at least…oh…the last three minutes…”


	43. The End of African Violets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one took me a while to write and had me crying at the end, so be warned. Written from a prompt from ‘642 Things to Write About’ - a houseplant is dying. Tell it why it needs to live’; with a little personal inspiration thrown in.
> 
> Sebastian comes home from work to find Kurt home early from promoting his fashion tour, desperately begging a dying African violet to spring back to life.
> 
> Futurefic, angst, emotional hurt/comfort. Warnings for anxiety and talk of impending character death.

Sebastian’s whole body feels like one giant knot; every muscle tightening together to form a single taut band. He sighs, trying to work out the stress and tension with massages from his own impotent fingers, lamenting the fact that the owner of the most talented fingers he knows is gallivanting across the country introducing his new fall couture line.

Sebastian groans, giving up on his useless attempts to relieve his agony. Kurt has been gone for over two weeks, and Sebastian’s shoulders aren’t the only part of his body in need of a good massage.

When he unlocks his apartment door and steps inside, he’s greeted by the soft yellow light in the hallway that he knows he didn’t leave on when he left for work in the morning, and a very welcome piece of Burberry luggage that he wasn’t expecting to see again until early next week.

Aside from the appearance of the luggage and the light, nothing else seems different. No one appears to be home.

“Kurt?” Sebastian calls into the emptiness, hoping to lure his husband out of hiding.

Of course, there is another option.

Maybe Kurt is waiting for him in bed already…naked…

The image that pops into his head is enough for Sebastian to sprint towards the master bedroom despite his screaming muscles and the intense pounding in his head from a day spent dodging stupid interns and their inane questions. If a person spends a hundred some odd thousand dollars on a college education, Sebastian felt that at least they should remember the moronically easy shit and stop bothering him every five seconds. Then again, there was always Sebastian’s favorite solution to this particular problem: intern cage match battle to the death. There’s only ever one job spot open at the company anyway. Better to win it via hand to hand combat than the daily dance these barely out of college students are trying to perfect of sucking up and bad flirting.

Further into the apartment, Sebastian starts to hear a low murmur that blooms into a sorrowful voice pleading, “Please…please, no! Don’t be dead! You can’t! Just…just come back…please…”

Sebastian softly pads into the bedroom, careful not to disturb his husband, narrowed eyes assessing the current state of the usually perfectly composed man that Sebastian calls his one and only. At this moment he looks worn down in places – flawless coif pulled askew with a few traitorous hairs hanging down into Kurt’s eyes, the top few buttons of his hand tailored dress shirt undone, suit jacket rumpled along the back as if he spent all night asleep in a high back chair.

The creak of the wood floor beneath Sebastian’s feet gives him away and Kurt stops muttering, head popping up like a scared rabbit, except instead of running he turns on his pursuer. Sebastian almost takes a step back when he sees Kurt’s face – pale skin red and splotchy, eyes blood shot and frantic, dried trails of tears starting from his eyes and blending together into a single waterfall down his cheeks.

“What is this?” Kurt snarls between bared white teeth, the tears that had collected along the contours of his lips breaking loose and continuing the journey around his mouth and down to his jawline. Kurt thrusts his hands forward and cradled in them Sebastian recognizes a pot with some dried, crumbly dirt, and the shriveled remains of a long dead flower.

“Ugh…” Sebastian makes a face as he stares at the poor, desiccated thing. “That’s one really dead plant.”

“Yes, it is,” Kurt agrees, his voice shaky yet still highly venomous. “A really dead plant that _you_ were responsible for taking care of.”

Sebastian’s face doesn’t improve as he mulls over Kurt’s words, trying hard to remember exactly when he had made a vow to insure the safety and well-being of this pathetic piece of decorative flora. Kurt shakes the pot in Sebastian’s face as if closer proximity to the ashen leaves and skeletal purple flowers will help jar his memory, but Sebastian only shakes his head, a hand reaching unconsciously up to his own shoulders, once again trying futilely to massage the tightening mass of knots.

“I’m sorry, Kurt, I just don’t remember.” Sebastian shrugs, going for apologetic but coming off as condescending instead.

“You know, I asked you for one thing,” Kurt says, his sudden calm unnerving, “ _one_ thing, and you couldn’t even manage that.” Kurt advances on Sebastian, shuffling along the floor, his Fratelli Rossetti wingtips scraping along the high polished shellac beneath their feet.

“I said I was sorry,” Sebastian says in his retreat, “I was busy with work and I guess I forgot.”

“You forgot?” Kurt stops walking forward and the quaking in his limbs seems to intensify. “It’s a plant, Sebastian! It’s a fairly simple thing to take care of. But look at it!” Kurt thrusts it forward again, causing a few crispy leaves and petals to shed and flutter to the floor. “What did you do? Give it bleach?”

Sebastian, flummoxed by his husband’s anger over such a trivial thing, feels his ire rising. With everything he has been dealing with at the office since Kurt left on his trip to rub elbows and hobnob with fashion’s elite, how was he supposed to dedicate so much unexpendable time and effort to a plant whose days were probably numbered even before Kurt left?

“Sure, Kurt,” Sebastian bites back, “right after you left, I immediately came in here and started feeding it poisonous chemicals just so that I could enjoy this moment that we’re sharing right now.”

“No,” Kurt retorts, shaking his head. “No, what you did was worse. You did nothing. You just didn’t care. It was important to me, so it was _un_ important to you. Is this how you’re going to act when we finally have kids?”

The emphasis on the word ‘finally’ stung Sebastian, since they had been having this conversation about children for years. They both agreed that they wanted them, but that now wasn’t the right time, so the discussion had waned and then finally gone cold.

“So, because I let one plant die, that means I’m going to be a shit father?” Sebastian growls.

“ _I_ didn’t say it.”

But Kurt sure as hell implied it.

Sebastian can feel the acidic scorch of a thousand hateful comments rise like bile in his throat, and a younger Sebastian would have let them fly. Instead, this more mature Sebastian takes a deep breath and swallows hard, pushing the words painfully back down into his chest. When he opens his mouth again his voice is tempered, maybe even comforting.

“I don’t understand what the big deal is. I’ll just buy you a new one.”

For some inexplicable reason, this starts a torrent of tears falling down Kurt’s cheeks, his lips twisting into a sickening grimace.

“I don’t want a new one!” he screeches. “I want this one. You can’t just let something die and then replace it. I like _this_ African violet.”

Sebastian’s temporary calm starts to bleed away no matter how hard he tries to hold on to it.

“So, did you just come home early to badger me?” Sebastian barks. “You know, I had a horrible day, and stupid me, I was excited to see you home early! I thought maybe, just maybe you were here because you missed me!” Sebastian steps forward without even noticing, crowding Kurt backward against the wall, the doomed little plant still clutched in his cupped hands. “Well, excuse me, princess, if I was too busy working to care about some dumb shit plant that, by the way, you only like because your father gave it to you.”

Sebastian gestures towards the plant, but he is so close he smacks the pot out of Kurt’s hand, sending it flying into the wall, the brittle plastic cracking and shattering to a million pieces. Kurt grabs his hand away, stepping back as if Sebastian had intended on hitting him.

Kurt’s eyes lock on the devastated plant and its fractured pot, and he crumbles, sliding down the wall, his mouth open in horror, wrapped around a silent sob.

Sebastian sees the look of ultimate and utter despair on his husband’s face, but he’s finding it hard to be sympathetic. After all, Sebastian works hard, too. And he missed Kurt so much he could barely find words to describe it. It was like a physical piece of him was missing, with only phantom remnants hanging around the apartment to torment him. But here he comes home early, and instead of falling into each other’s arms, they were bickering over this stupid African violet. Of course, Burt had gotten it for Kurt and that made it special, Sebastian had to admit that, but…

That’s when all the tumblers fit into place one at a time until the whole puzzle unlocked.

_Home early._

Kurt never comes home from his tours early. He had bronchitis once during a show in Paris, and he slammed back antibiotics and suffered through.

_Dead plant._

_Dead plant his father gave him._

“Oh, God, Kurt,” Sebastian says, reaching for Kurt with trembling hands. Kurt doesn’t acknowledge the man wrapping his arms around him, but he doesn’t resist either.

“Oh, Kurt,” Sebastian repeats, unsure of what else there is in the world to say.

Sorry?

Over the course of their rollercoaster relationship, Sebastian has run out of ‘sorry’s. In fact, he’s more than sure he holds IOU’s to Kurt for more than a few.

“Is he really…? When did you find out?”

And without even having to hear the answer, Sebastian starts crying, too. Because this isn’t just anyone they’re talking about. It’s Burt. Burt who could have objected to him and Kurt dating, especially after all the shit Sebastian pulled; after he tried to rock salt Kurt and tried to blackmail Finn. Burt could have said no when Sebastian asked for his blessing to marry Kurt. But Burt is the most fair-minded man Sebastian has ever met. He accepted Sebastian, taking him at face value once he saw just how much he loved his son. He always made Sebastian feel like a member of the family. He taught Sebastian to rebuild a transmission. He invited him to family dinners every Friday. They watched the Buckeyes play while Kurt read Vogue. They entered the bass fishing tournament at the Auglaize River every year.

Sebastian is proud to consider Burt his dad.

“C-carole c-alled me,” Kurt chokes between sobs. “He’s in a coma. There’s really no hope, so basically they’re just waiting…”

“For you?” Sebastian finishes quietly.

Kurt nods.

“And you,” Kurt says. It sounds a little like a question, and it breaks Sebastian’s heart that Kurt thinks he wouldn’t drop everything to be at Burt’s side.

“Of course,” Sebastian says, squeezing Kurt tight, preparing to let go. “I’ll just hop online and turn in our Jet-Blue vouchers…”

“Not...not just yet,” Kurt says, curling further into Sebastian’s chest. “Can we just sit here for a minute?”

“Sure,” Sebastian says, relaxing into his husband’s body and holding him infinitely tighter, because even though they’re borrowing time, Sebastian knows that Kurt needs to breathe in deep and in their own private sanctuary take a moment to mourn the end of his African violets.


	44. A Mile in His Shoes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the anon prompt 'bodyswap'.
> 
> Sebastian buys a special potion that will allow him to switch bodies with Kurt for 12 hours so he can finally have sex with Blaine, but when Blaine’s not available, Sebastian finds Kurt’s diary and begins to realize that just maybe he’s had his sights set on the wrong guy all a long.

The second he starts to wake up, Sebastian knows it worked. He doesn’t even have to open his eyes to prove that he is no longer lying beneath the satin sheets of his California King bed in his penthouse uptown. Everything – the air around him, the mattress underneath him, the skin covering him - feels different. He takes a moment to run borrowed hands down this stolen body. This chest is narrower, the waist trimmer, the muscles in the arms and legs leaner. He wraps fingers around an already half-hard cock.

Whoa. Much more impressive than he would have thought.

Who knew that a wacky magic potion from some drugged-out hippie would actually work?

Sebastian blinks open foreign eyes and looks straight up at the industrial cement ceiling. He raises heavy arms and sees two pale hands, long fingers, and perfectly manicured nails.

Oh, yes. It definitely worked. For the next twelve hours, Sebastian Smythe is trapped in the body of Kurt Hummel.

That means, if his calculations are correct, Kurt is comatose in his own sedated body, lying in Sebastian’s bed. Damn fucking shit, they are both going to have one hell of a headache this evening, but Sebastian couldn’t care less about Hummel, and as for himself…that doesn’t matter right now. It will all be worth it when he gets his hands (and his mouth, and his ass, and everything else he can conceivably think of) on the body of Blaine Anderson.

Realization dawns on Sebastian, and he runs Kurt’s hands over his body again, noticing that his fingers don’t touch fabric or slip beneath the waistband of any pants or underwear, which means…

‘Kurt Hummel, you sly dog,’ Sebastian thinks, enjoying the feel of this different body and Kurt’s incredibly soft skin. ‘You sleep naked.’

Which means Blaine should be lying beside him, also naked, ready for his fiancé to have awesome (and surprisingly different) morning sex with him.

Sebastian rolls over, unprepared for how minor differences in their heights and weights become a problem in managing this seemingly simple maneuver. But he makes it onto Kurt’s side and finds himself facing an empty rest of the bed.

“Fuck!” Sebastian hisses, startled by the high-pitched voice that echoes through the open space. Sebastian smiles. “Fuck! Shit! Fuck fuck fucking ass motherfucker!”

Sebastian laughs, way too amused at the sound of Kurt’s prim voice cursing like a sailor. He quiets down and looks around, listening for sounds of life anywhere else in the apartment, but he seems to be alone.

It’s Saturday morning. Sebastian figured Blaine would be there, if not hanging out in bed with Kurt, having some kind of deep, meaningful, Sarah McLachlan love song type sex, then making pancakes and singing Showtunes while birds and other forest creatures help him wash the dishes. Sebastian looks around the curtained-in space that passes as Blaine and Kurt’s bedroom, judgmentally assessing the second-hand shabby chic furniture mixed with eclectic pieces and dated touches that he can only assume are part of Kurt’s design plan and not Blaine’s. Sebastian doesn’t want to admit it, but he doesn’t exactly hate what Kurt’s done with the place.

Okay, so Kurt Hummel has an eye for interior design. There. He admitted it. Good deed for the day done. Now on to his plan of getting Blaine into bed.

Sebastian spots Kurt’s iPhone on the dresser, a text message alert on the screen. He stands unsteadily on Kurt’s feet, leaning against the bed frame until he’s sure he isn’t going to take one step and then face plant into the hardwood floor. He makes his way around the end of the bed, passing a vintage full-length mirror, and stops. Sebastian had never tried to imagine Kurt naked before, assuming he was pretty much androgynous, possibly with no visible genitalia whatsoever. So the reflection of the muscular body he’s staring at, hairless except for his legs, and without a single blemish or scar, stuns him.

Sebastian turns Kurt’s body from side to side, watching the muscles shift beneath the skin, the way every inch of him seems perfectly proportioned. If Sebastian was ever going to describe a human being as ‘sculpted’, Kurt, unfortunately, would be that person.

Sebastian sighs. As far as physical attributes are concerned, maybe he’s going after the wrong guy. With this image in his sights, he pictures Kurt every time he’s seen him, dressed in those ridiculous outfits he wears, though there’s really no overlooking his penchant for tight ass pants. When Sebastian first saw Kurt in his black skinny jeans, he couldn’t help thinking that it must be unhealthy to wear something that tight. How did he even sit down without cracking at the knees? But if Sebastian had known this body was hiding underneath, he might have taken a better look.

Taken a better look, and filed it away for some of his more intense masturbatory fantasies.

Sebastian feels one of those fantasies coming on now, as he reaches down Kurt’s body for the cock that’s started bobbing, begging for attention while Sebastian’s been daydreaming about sex with Kurt’s body – bending him over, taking him from behind (to avoid seeing his face), listening to that chirpy-little voice of his scream Sebastian’s name.

It takes the memory of Kurt calling him a meerkat and saying that he has giant horse teeth to break Sebastian from his stupor, sending him back on his merry way towards the phone.

Sebastian picks it up, fumbling it a few times as he gets used to Kurt’s fingers and the way they move. Sebastian figures he better practice grabbing things if he’s going to properly take care of Blaine. Sebastian unlocks the screen and checks the first unread message.

From: Blaine

Walked Rachel to the farmer’s market. See you later. I love you. <3

Sebastian grimaces as he reads the message again. Geez. Blaine has to be pretty neutered if he’d leave his sexy fiancé naked in bed to walk with young Barbra Streisand to the farmer’s market.

Yeah, he called Kurt ‘sexy’. He’d deal with the consequences of that one later.

Sebastian smiles, dialing Blaine’s number. He’ll simply have to lure Blaine back to the loft with the promise of a blowjob or something.

Blaine answers on the first ring, and Sebastian grins.

That’s promising.

“Hey, Kurt,” the smooth voice on the line greets him.

“Hey handsome,” Sebastian replies, trying to make Kurt’s voice sound rough and sexy, and damn if it doesn’t work a little too well, because Sebastian can feel himself getting turned on by the sound of Kurt’s seductive voice. “I miss you, baby. Why don’t you come back and I’ll show you how much?”

Blaine sighs, the ensuing silence dragging on much longer than Sebastian thinks necessary.

“Kurt,” Blaine says, enunciating the name with annoyance instead of sounding insanely aroused, as if Sebastian has unknowingly stoked an argument that had been left to burn itself out, “we talked about this. You know I have an audition on Friday, and I’m observing the ‘Audition Tradition’, which means no fooling around for the week before so I don’t risk getting sick. No exceptions. End of discussion.”

‘What?’ Sebastian thinks. ‘That sounds insane.’

Sebastian’s mind whirls, trying to find a response that sounds like something Kurt would say.

“But I miss you,” he says, miming gagging in front of the mirror, where he had moved back to watch the reaction of Kurt’s body to the sound of his voice.

‘Hmm…he’s definitely a grower…’

“Oh, honey,” Blaine coos, his tune changing slightly, “I’ll be back in an hour. I promise.”

Sebastian sighs. “Yeah, okay,” he says, under-impressed by Blaine’s reaction to his fiancé blatantly throwing himself at him. “One hour.”

“I love yo—“

Sebastian doesn’t wait for Blaine to finish before he hangs up, tossing the iPhone on the bed.

An hour.

Blaine would be back in an hour.

And then Sebastian would find a way to pry him out of his pants, ‘audition tradition’ or no ‘audition tradition’.

Though the prospect starts to look less than appealing the more Sebastian thinks about it.

Maybe he pegged them both wrong, and Kurt isn’t the frigid bitch in this relationship.

Oh boy.

Sebastian takes a glance toward the window, where the morning sunlight has started to shine brighter, stretching under the curtain towards him.

An hour.

What the hell is there to do in Bushwick for an hour?

Sebastian has no intention of leaving the loft, and not because he likes hanging around in Kurt’s body naked, he tells himself, but because he wouldn’t be caught dead in any body wearing Kurt’s excuse for a wardrobe.

“What to do, what to do…” he murmurs, turning in a circle, sweeping his eyes around.

He can read.

He looks at the piles of Vogue, Italian Vogue, and Harper’s Bazaar stacked on the floor by Kurt’s side of the bed and groans.

Hard pass.

He can (look around, look around) do some…sewing?

He stares at Kurt’s antique sewing machine and smirks.

A world of nope.

He can rifle through Kurt’s things and invade his privacy…more than he has already?

He sees the dresser Kurt’s phone was on, its symmetrical line of drawers sitting shut, asking to be violated.

Bingo.

Sebastian looks back around at the furniture in the room, trying to figure out where he should start. The dresser looks promising, but it’s too obvious. Nothing truly dark and deep is going to be left where anyone can go in and find it, under his socks or to the left of his underwear. Sebastian roams the room, toeing at shoes boxes and another small dresser, reaching with a foot under the bed to search there. He finds a footlocker in the corner covered by a pile of blankets…and it’s locked.

Jackpot!

Sebastian walks over and examines the lock. A padlock, and it needs a key.

Sebastian rummages over the dresser, moving cologne bottles and bowties, bizarre animal head brooches, and various banally-shaped pins, but no key. He moves on to a squat dresser over by the bed and sifts through the drawers.

Tissues, a vibrator, condoms, and lube in the top drawer. Sebastian rolls Kurt’s eyes. Predictable.

Bottles of moisturizer, a few tubes of concealer, sunscreen, an iPod, and a prescription for Ambien in the middle drawer. Hmm, Ambien. Not as predictable.

In the bottom drawer, hidden beneath a collection of scarves (Sebastian grins - he can appreciate the thinking behind keeping scarves in a drawer right next to the bed) are a collection of leather bound journals. Sebastian pulls them out and spreads them on the bed. There must be around ten of them in total, each one with a different year stamped on the cover in gold. Sebastian picks the journal with the current year and flips to the last entry.

It was written just yesterday.

Sebastian sits on the bed and crosses Kurt’s legs, preparing to read.

Dear diary –

Sebastian groans. What is he, twelve?

I think I’ve finally reached the end of my rope. I love him too much to leave, but I love myself too much to stay. What do I do?

“Oops, trouble in paradise,” Sebastian mutters. Sebastian wants to gloat more over Kurt’s apparent despair, but for some reason he can’t. A tiny twinge of guilt hits him when he not only re-reads the words, but notices the handwriting – sloppy, wobbly, some of the ink smeared, parts of the page lighter than others, as if something dripped in those spots…water, maybe tears?

Sebastian grabs a handful of pages and turns back in the book. He finds a promising looking passage and begins reading.

Dear diary – Blaine messed up my coffee order again.

Sebastian chuckles.

“Oh, boo-hoo…”

He claims it was the barista’s fault, but he messed it up last week, too, at a completely different coffee shop. And the exact same order. Mocha soy latte with a shot of espresso. How does that combination even make sense? When I complained about it, he called me a bitch. He actually called me a bitch in front of everyone. People were staring. I couldn’t honestly care less about the coffee; I just can’t help but wonder if  **he**  took his coffee that way.

Sebastian opened Kurt’s eyes wide.

He?

Did Blaine Anderson, Mr. Perfect, sex-on-a-stick-and-sings-like-a-dream, cheat on Kurt Hummel?

Sebastian can’t believe it. How did he not hear about this before?

Sebastian can’t help but feel a little burnt himself. Blaine stepped out on Kurt, and Sebastian was not first on the list of candidates. More than that, Sebastian wonders - why did Kurt take him back?

Sebastian flips forward through the pages.

Dear diary – The daydream I had about living in New York with my best friend and my fiancé is much different than the reality. Who knew that a loft the size of an airplane hangar would feel so cramped with the addition of one other person - correction, two other people. Apparently now wherever Blaine goes, Sam goes, too. You would think everything would have evened out when Santana decided to move in with Dani, but it hasn’t. The closed-in feeling isn’t the only side-effect of Sam’s omnipresence. Blaine barely wants to have sex anymore. He doesn’t feel comfortable doing it with Sam in the loft. And we don’t go out on dates alone together as often as I want because he feels bad leaving Sam out. But my feelings of abandonment don’t seem to stop them from all the bro-dates (Sam’s word, not mine) that they go on. Midnight movie marathons, sporting events, piggy back rides in the park (I kid you not). I would normally find solace hanging out with Rachel, but with all-day Funny Girl rehearsals, I never see her. Who knew that I could feel so lonely living with three roommates in a city of 8,000,000 people?

Sebastian swallows hard. Whenever he saw Blaine and Kurt together, they looked like the stereotypical sappy couple. He never knew about any of this. But then again, why would he? Sebastian’s an ass. He knows that he’s an ass. He looks at Kurt’s reflection in the mirror to confirm it.

Yup. Sebastian Smythe is an ass.

But he’s an ass that knows a little something about loneliness.

He’s never really been in love.

He’s only ever had fair-weather friends.

He’s been living alone in his expensive penthouse uptown ever since he moved to New York.

Sebastian looks at Kurt’s iPhone lying not too far away, and catches a glimpse of the time.

8:45 a.m.

Blaine should be back in about fifteen minutes. He should probably get dressed, but Sebastian can’t imagine that Blaine will actually be on time, not after everything he’s learned so far. Besides, there wouldn’t be anything suspicious about naked Kurt reading through his own journals, so Sebastian picks the first one, the one with the oldest date on the cover, and starts to read.

Dear diary –

The therapist my dad is sending me to recommends writing in a diary every day so that I can sort out my feelings about losing my mom. Well, here goes…

It sucks that she’s dead.

It hurts not having her around.

Oh yeah, and my therapist should jump off a tall bridge.

Just a recommendation of my own.

Sebastian laughs, shaking Kurt’s head.

Dear diary –

Did you know that a Slushie to the face feels like ice cold shards of glass cutting through your skin? Because it does…

 

Dear diary –

Mercedes thought we were dating. I got out of it by telling her I’m in love with Rachel.

It’s kind of like shooting yourself in the head to escape a wild bull attack.

 

Dear diary –

I can’t keep hiding who I am, especially from my dad. It feels like lying. I can be anything. He’s always telling me that. But what I am is gay…

 

Dear diary –

A jock and his friends threw pee balloons at me, and as pissed as I am (defusing anger through humor right there, by the way) I can’t help but think about the mechanics of peeing into a balloon…

 

Dear diary –

Another day…another dumpster toss…another fabulous designer outfit ruined…

 

Journal after journal, entry after entry of Kurt’s life.

Bullying.

Violence.

Intolerance.

A lifetime spent fighting to be seen, hoping to be accepted, and every single time someone pushed him down, he got right back up again.

But it’s the entries about Blaine that really turn Sebastian’s (or Kurt’s…literal or figurative…too confusing) stomach. Sebastian thought that meeting Blaine was like winning the lottery for Kurt. Otherwise, why would he hold on to him so hard? Why would he fight Sebastian tooth and nail to keep him?

The next entry he reads answers his question.

 

Dear diary –

Do you think that Stephen Chbosky is right?

Do we accept the love we think we deserve?

 

Another one…one that he’s prepared to hate…nearly breaks his heart.

 

Dear diary –

I hate Sebastian Smythe. I hated him in Ohio, but I hate him more now that he’s managed to worm his way back into our lives by getting accepted into NYU. Just when I thought he was gone, he pops right back up.

He seems to want Blaine so much. I know he probably doesn’t love him. It would just be fun for him to break us up.

But what about me? What does he see in Blaine that he doesn’t see in me? I know I’m not the ‘alpha gay’ that Blaine supposedly is, but I’m not chopped liver.

How come no one is trying to steal me away from Blaine?

 

Sebastian closes the journal and crosses Kurt’s arms over his chest.

So many burdens. So much pain that Sebastian never knew about - his mom dead, his father’s health always at risk, and this relationship with Blaine that never seems to be on stable ground.

Sebastian knows his moral compass doesn’t always point in the right direction, but even he can see this isn’t right. Kurt shouldn’t have to go through this anymore.

Sebastian doesn’t know if it’s a consequence of the time he has spent in Kurt’s body, but he feels strangely protective of him; a kind of peculiar affection blooming in Sebastian’s heart as he replays every interaction they have ever had, trying to re-read every emotion, every shift of his eyes, every smile that most likely hid something deeper.

He turns back to the mirror, sees Kurt’s reflection staring back at him, those impossibly blue eyes, that honest face, the masterpiece of a body that he’s inhabited against Kurt’s will for the last few hours.

Suddenly, Sebastian feels very foolish.

He wishes he could add a few lines to the entry in Kurt’s journal; the one that asks what Blaine has that he doesn’t. If he could, it would read, “There’s nothing he has that you don’t, Kurt Hummel. I can see myself falling for you, too.”

Sebastian hears the loft door slide open, and more than one pair of feet shuffle in. Sebastian looks at Kurt’s phone and sees it’s now eleven o’clock. Sebastian bites his lips, feels Kurt’s entire body rush with heat.

Blaine is two hours late…and Sebastian is pissed.

Sebastian grabs a shirt and a pair of jeans, and though the shirt goes on relatively easy, the jeans take a little finagling before he can do up the fly.

Sebastian in Kurt’s body storms through the curtains of the partitioned room (amazed at his ease, since his first few attempts at movement were unspectacular, to say the least) and bears down on Blaine, so distracted with whatever conversation he and Sam are having that he doesn’t seem to notice his fiancé flying at him, fury painting his face scarlet.

“Where the fuck have you been, Blaine Anderson?” Kurt’s voice roars, and this time Sebastian doesn’t try to think of something that real Kurt might say. Either way, the accusation fits.

“I was out…” Blaine says, laughter dying in his throat, wide whiskey-colored eyes confused, “…with Sam.” Blaine rests a hand on Sam’s shoulder, and Sam, at least, has the decency to shrink beneath the furious man’s glare.

“Oh, really? And when did you make that decision? When I spoke to you at eight o’clock this morning, you were walking baby Babette to the farmer’s market, and you said you were going to be gone an hour. It’s ten o’clock, Blaine, and it’s Saturday! Did you even stop to think that maybe I would want to spend time with you, too?”

Sebastian, feeling Kurt’s body tremble around him as his anger builds, realizes he no longer cares about fucking Blaine. But Kurt…Kurt didn’t deserve to be stood up by the man who supposedly loves him.

“The day’s not even half over yet, Kurt,” Blaine argues. “Sam told me about this great exhibit downtown I thought we could all go to…”

“That’s not the kind of time I had in mind, Blaine,” Sebastian seethes on Kurt’s behalf. “What about our private time, Blaine? What about a good old-fashioned Saturday afternoon fuck fest? It seems like those have gone the way of the dodo since I inherited the blond bimbo here living on my couch.”

“Hey!” Sam cuts in. “Not cool, Kurt.”

“Really?” Sebastian says, turning on Sam. “You know, you were homeless once. I don’t see why you can’t be again!”

“Kurt,” Blaine interrupts, keeping his voice even, trying to sound diplomatic, “now that’s not fair.”

“No, hobbit, what’s not fair is that you came out here to New York to be with me. So when exactly does the being with me start?”

Sebastian feels Kurt’s body become breathless, fists clenched by his sides. This is what it means to be Kurt; to fight his entire life to keep the things that other people get handed to them and take for granted.

“Um…I think maybe I’d better go,” Sam says, backing away with his hands raised.

“No, Sam, wait” - Blaine turns and catches him by the arm before he makes it to the door - “I think if we just settle down for a minute, we can all work this out.”

“No, Sam’s right,” Sebastian says, nodding Kurt’s head. “It’s time that there was one less person in this fucking fun house, and that’s me. I’m leaving.”

Sebastian turns Kurt back towards the bedroom with Blaine hot on his heels.

“Kurt! Kurt, don’t! Kurt, stop!”

Sebastian grabs Kurt’s phone off the bed and his wallet from the dresser. He slips on Kurt’s Doc Marten boots, not even sparing a glance for Blaine, who’s racing after him, reaching out a hand to grab him by the arm.

“Kurt! You can’t leave!” Blaine sounds panicked, leaping over the sofa in an attempt to cut his fiancé off. “Please! I love you!”

“No, Blaine,” Sebastian calls behind him as he brushes by Sam and heads for the door, “you love you. There isn’t enough left for anyone else.”

***

‘Strutting in Kurt’s body has to be the hottest fucking thing in the universe,’ Sebastian thinks when he catches Kurt’s reflection in the windows of the buildings he walks past on the way to the subway. He laughs a bitter, somewhat heartbroken laugh. He just succeeded in doing the thing he had been trying to accomplish since high school.

He broke up Kurt and Blaine.

Blaine calls and texts Kurt’s phone about a hundred times before Sebastian shuts it off. He doesn’t bother to read the messages. Not because they’re private (ha-ha), but because he’s disgusted to think about the kinds of excuses Blaine might use to try and win Kurt back. While he sits on the subway, traveling uptown, he thinks of everything that’s happened in the last few hours. When he bought that stupid potion to switch places with Kurt, the crunchy, granola-eating freak he got it from told him that the experience might ‘change him’. Sebastian thought that was pretty obvious, but he never imagined this. He’d always thought of Kurt as a stuck-up, prissy asshole, a peasant that demanded to be treated like a king, and that Blaine had been forced into subservience, demoted from his natural splendor into the position of Kurt’s adorable but hot lap dog.

Sebastian told Kurt once that he didn’t deserve Blaine.

How oddly right Sebastian was.

It’s not that Sebastian hated Kurt. Kurt was competition, so Sebastian never really let himself dwell on what could be considered the finer parts of Kurt Hummel. Deep down, Sebastian recognized that Kurt was smart, talented, with a razor sharp tongue that matched his own, and, now that he’s grown into his own fashion sense, Sebastian wouldn’t be embarrassed to be seen with Kurt in public.

Kurt doesn’t need someone wishy-washy like Blaine, who would pick bromance over romance. Kurt needs a man with balls and a spinal cord.

Sebastian considers whether or not he could be that guy.

Sebastian makes it uptown without remembering a single step of the journey. He manages to flirt his way past security (how did he never notice that Ryan, the security guard, was gay?) and up to his penthouse by way of a private elevator, thankful that he thought to leave his door unlocked.

He makes a beeline for the bedroom, kicks off Kurt’s boots, and climbs into bed beside his sleeping body. It feels surreal to look at his own face, knowing that Kurt is trapped behind there. That alone makes it look unfamiliar - softer, not entirely his own. It goes both ways. Knowing everything he knows about Kurt now, this façade that is Kurt’s face and body looks vastly different when he peeks at it in the mirror. He brushes a lock of brown hair away from sleeping eyes, wondering what kind of morning the real Kurt has had, what kind of dreams he might be having now. While the last remaining hours of their time apart from their bodies drips away, Sebastian concocts the story he plans to tell Kurt when he wakes up in an unfamiliar bed.

At some point, Sebastian drifts off to sleep, but wakes up when the sharp prickling behind his eyes warns him that the switch will happen soon. He hears his own body whimpering, and knows Kurt feels the pain, too; that it’s pulling him from his drug-induced slumber. Sebastian wants to whisper something reassuring, but the agony is so all-encompassing that he can’t move. With an instantaneous blinding flash of light and a deafening crack that sounds like his entire skull splitting apart, he’s aware that he’s back in his own body.

That’s when the migraine kicks in.

“Oh, God,” Kurt - the real Kurt - groans. Sebastian forces his eyes open, disoriented at having traded places on the bed, to watch Kurt wake.

“My head…” Kurt continues to groan. “Why does my head feel…OHMYGOD!”

“Please…don’t scream…” Sebastian pleads quietly, and even though Kurt looks furious as well as confused, he agrees.

“What the fuck!” Kurt whispers, lifting a hand to his head to block the mind-numbing throb. “Why the hell am I in your bed?”

“Kurt,” Sebastian says, but not quiet enough to keep the room from tilting left and right. He thinks for a moment, debating between a lie and some version of the truth, deciding to go ahead with his prepared lie. “You called me to come pick you up.”

“Why would I do something stupid like that?” Kurt squeezes his eyes shut as his voice raises in pitch.

“Because you were drunk,” Sebastian says, hating himself a little. “You got into a fight with Blaine, and you left. I brought you back here, and then we got drunk some more.”

Kurt gasps, his face a shroud of disbelief as he tries his best to recall anything, but then he relaxes a bit, becoming sorrowful and calm.

“Yeah,” he whispers, opening his eyes. “I’m not entirely sure why I would call you, of all people, but that sounds about right.”

Sebastian is a little surprised, but he tries not to show it, though he can’t imagine that his face shows anything other than the fact that he wants to die, as quickly as possible.

Kurt sniffles, and Sebastian sees a small tear race down his cheek.

Sebastian feels that tear, like razors, slice throughout his whole body.

Kurt looks lost and scared, and Sebastian curses to himself, questioning why he didn’t just leave well-enough alone.

Because he couldn’t. It would have been the worst thing he’d ever done, even worse than switching bodies.

“What’s wrong?” Sebastian asks, trying to act like an outside observer, and not letting on about the volumes of ill-gained insider knowledge he has.

“It’s just…I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now,” Kurt confesses. “I have nowhere else to go.”

“You can stay with me,” Sebastian rushes out too quickly, causing his whole head to ring like a bell.

Kurt’s mouth twists in a sarcastic frown.

“Yeah, right,” he scoffs, trying to get up, succeeding in lifting his head a quarter of an inch off the pillow, and then dropping back down with a wince. “Why would you help me?”

“You and I…I know we’ve never exactly been friends…”

“I hate you,” Kurt deadpans.

Sebastian wants to laugh, but then his face would crack, and his brain would spill out. He’s sure of it.

“Yeah, well there are days I pretty much want to staple your tongue to a wall, but I’m prepared to look past all that, princess.”

Sebastian sees Kurt’s face twitch as he tries not to smile. Kurt abandons his efforts at a sort-of half-smile, and sighs instead.

“I should go back,” Kurt says.

“No, Kurt,” Sebastian says emphatically, headache be damned. “You made a lot of sense, and I think if you go back, you’ll be making a huge mistake.”

Sebastian moves, slowly reaching across the distance between them. After several excruciating seconds, he places a hand over Kurt’s and squeezes gently.

“Don’t settle, Kurt,” Sebastian says. “Don’t settle for the love you think you deserve.”

A second tear follows the first down Kurt’s cheek. Kurt stares at Sebastian, and Sebastian can see his mind working, sluggishly, most likely, dragging itself through the mire of pain that Sebastian shares with him.

Sebastian sees the truth in Kurt’s eyes now – the pain, the fear, the disappointment.

“Look, you don’t have to trust me yet,” Sebastian interrupts. “I’m not asking you to. Just…don’t go back, not today at least. Think about it. Give yourself time.”

Kurt doesn’t answer. He tries to nod, but his head refuses to move.

“Okay,” Sebastian says, “blink once for yes, and twice for no.”

Kurt makes a sputtering noise as he tries to hold back a laugh, and blinks once.

“Good,” Sebastian says, relieved by Kurt’s answer.

“So, what do we do know?” Kurt asks. “I don’t think I can move. This hangover is killing me.”

“Yeah,” Sebastian agrees. “I’ve got an idea. Since we’re going to be here for a while, why don’t we tell each other our deepest, darkest secrets?”

Kurt’s face stays expressionless, but his eyes are wary.

“I just thought that maybe we should get to know each other a little better, seeing as we’re going to be sharing a bathroom and everything.”

Sebastian waits for an answer, but Kurt doesn’t give him one, looking at him skeptically, still mulling things over.

“Who knows,” Sebastian says with what would be a shrug if he could manage one, “maybe I’m not as much of a shit as you think I am.”

Kurt sputters again, and smiles.

“Why not,” Kurt says. “Stranger things have happened.”

Sebastian returns Kurt’s smile.

“You have no idea.”


	45. Sorry...Have We Met?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I’m going to reveal the prompt for this one at the end.
> 
> Sebastian has one last night of partying left before the start of school, and he wants to find someone special to spend it with.
> 
> Warnings for drug use, voyeurism, exhibitionism, use of a homophobic slur, sex, multiple partner sex (SebKadam three-way).

Labor Day.

The last official day of summer vacation.

Correction – due to a bizarrely timed heat wave, it felt more like the last ‘sweltering hot, unbearably humid, strangling in your own clothes, why did I try to leave my apartment at noon’ day of New York City summer vacation; the last day before the start of fall semester, and it more than fucking sucked that Sebastian couldn’t properly enjoy it. There was nothing for him to do except sit in front of the a/c, quietly recoiling at the state of his monstrously high electrical bills as he tried not to melt. Of course he could make one last ditch effort to go to the beach if he was willing to wake up at four to catch a train at six and brave three long bus rides just to arrive at the shore with about three thousand other New Yorkers and tourists in tow.

No thank you.

So he ate gelato and napped naked on sheets he stored in the fridge, waiting for the sun to set, when the real fun would begin. Living in the city with the heat trapped in by the smog didn’t mean that nighttime got any cooler, but it wouldn’t matter once he hit the clubs and got plenty of alcohol in his system, once the pounding music moved through him and he could find someone else to move through. The thought had him grinning like the Joker straight through sunset, stroking and fingering himself from time to time in order to take the edge off so that when confronted with temptation he wouldn’t jump on the first tight ass he saw.

Dressed in form-fitting indigo jeans and a plain white tee, Sebastian knew just how irresistible he was. He didn’t need to dress to the nines to get attention, especially when most of the clubs would be throwing themed raves of one sort or another, so in his casual attire he was more than prepared to get covered in bubble soap, glitter, foam, or whatever else came along. He preferred foam. The clubs were so dark and the foam got so thick that it offered the opportunity to fuck right out on the dance floor with only a few people wise to any nefarious activities.  

Sebastian always let a few people watch. What was the point of working so hard on his body if he wasn’t going to show it off?

If he hadn’t spent so much time and money pursuing his chosen profession, he could totally see himself becoming a porn star.

Sebastian popped in a few clubs, scoping out the dance floors, searching for any prospective hook-ups. He had something special in mind and he wasn’t about to settle. Not tonight. He sipped a few drinks, flirted his way through the crowds, and managed to stay relatively clean. The last club on his route before he’d have to backtrack was throwing a neon rave, supplying patrons with tubes of glow in the dark paint. A throng of painted people already occupied the dance floor, and considering the way everyone was packed in tight, Sebastian figured it would be difficult to find anyone there that would capture his interest. The group blurred together into one solid mass.

He did a single circuit around the dance floor, traveling to where the swarm of bodies converged, not expecting anything spectacular to strike his fancy; but there in the center, controlling the orgy with delectable gyrations of his hips, was the apex predator in whom lust and desire collided. Sebastian stared shamelessly, drinking in every move, every muscle, every subtle curve. This fascinating nymph seduced those gathered around him; those many admirers, male and female, who fought through the turbulent sea of dancers just to be near him. He was shirtless, his chest glistening with sweat, his exposed skin painted completely in stripes of bright color, all but his face which stayed unmarked.

Every one of the sycophants surrounding him probably realized that it would be a crime to cover up that gorgeous face.

Sebastian thought he was safe to ogle, hidden in the relative obscurity of the people crowded around the fringe, but the nymph opened his eyes and stared right at him, smiling as if he had been expecting him. His incredible eyes held power, and Sebastian knew that he would do anything, be anyone, to stay locked in them.

The man’s eyes never shifted left or right, his smile widening as the look on Sebastian’s face turned from awe to hunger, his mouth dropping open just a bit, tongue slowly licking parched lips. Sebastian swallowed hard. He felt that tongue travel from his lips to his neck to his nipples, and then lower, so much lower that his form fitting jeans became painful and obscene, even with the shield of his white t-shirt pulled down around his hips.

The man threw his head back and laughed. A few of his admirers joined in, and Sebastian rolled his eyes, knowing that they had no clue why they were laughing. They just knew that this infectious young man was laughing and they had to emulate him to secure the honor of being with him. He leaned down to address the mob, his eyes flicking up occasionally to make sure Sebastian stayed put. A series of faces expressing varying levels of distress turned his way, and Sebastian averted his eyes, trying not to be too obvious that their idol was exiting the dance floor because of him. But Sebastian couldn't care less if the entire cluster of petulant young men and women ended up jumping him later since right now the sublime man with the amazing body and the magical cyan eyes was leaving his group of worshippers to talk to him.

Many hands reached out to him, but the man just brushed by them. When he reached Sebastian, he pressed their bodies together like he was greeting an old lover. He looped his arms behind Sebastian’s neck, threaded fingers through his hair, touched over his face and skin as if being connected was necessary for life, for breath. Sebastian’s eyes locked onto the man’s mouth. His lips looked so soft, so incredibly soft…

“Did you see something you liked?” the man whispered, letting his lips travel like a spirit just above Sebastian’s skin.

“Yes,” Sebastian replied, his voice raw.

“Then you should take a picture,” the man giggled. “It would last longer.”

Sebastian didn’t know what came over him. Maybe it was the man’s breath brushing against his hot skin; or the way his hands couldn’t seem to stop touching him, fingertips tracing over his cheeks, fingers picking through individual strands of his hair, lips so close Sebastian almost felt them kissing him. Whatever it was about him, Sebastian knew he had to move fast if he wanted him, even if he didn’t know the man’s name.

“If I took _you_ ,” Sebastian asked, leaning in as close as he could to the man’s elfish ear, “how long would you last?”

The man slid his body sinuously against Sebastian, undeniably hard and ready to go.

“Do you want to find out?”

Sebastian smirked, his hands finally wrapping around the man’s waist, reaching down his back to cup his exceptional ass. Just feeling it, taut and supple in the palms of his hands, made Sebastian sizzle like the fuse of a Roman candle.

“Just name the place,” he growled, rutting against the man who rolled his head on his shoulders and hummed contentedly while Sebastian had his way with him there in front of the bar.

“Well, I happen to have a favorite stall if you’re game,” Kurt murmured, not seeming to care too much whether they took this party elsewhere or not.

Sebastian didn’t want to stop, and the eyes of jealous men all around them made taking this man that much more delicious.

“After you,” Sebastian said, refusing to let go of the firm flesh in his hands. The man didn’t move right away, leaning against Sebastian, resting his weight on his body.

“Don’t you want to tell me your name,” the man purred, “if you want me screaming it later?”

Sebastian moaned, fighting through that sudden fantasy to remember his name.

“It’s Sebastian.”

“Mmm…Sebastian… _Sebastian_ …” the man hummed again, grinding against Sebastian sharply as if he found a scintillating carnal enjoyment at the sound of that name.

“What’s yours, babe?” Sebastian asked, dying to know what he was going to be calling this Adonis in his dreams for the rest of his life.

“Kurt,” the man said. “My name’s Kurt. Abuse it at your leisure.”

Kurt started walking backward through the crowd, pulling Sebastian along since he had no intention of letting this man go and risk losing him to the drooling lapdogs that hovered nearby. That didn’t seem like too much of a problem since the man…Kurt…didn’t want to let Sebastian go either. He was determined to touch Sebastian with every inch of skin on his body.

People cleared their path when they saw the couple coming, and Kurt led Sebastian past them all and into the bathroom. Barely through the door, Kurt pulled Sebastian close and let their lips lock together. Kurt tasted like sex on Sebastian’s lips, pure and simple – salty from sweat, sweet from some sort of alcohol, and something else deep and human that had to be Kurt himself. Sebastian’s hands roamed Kurt’s body, but Kurt stopped him, taking one of his hands and pressing something small and hard into his palm. Sebastian barely broke the kiss to look down at the object in his hand - a little blue pill with a tiny crown imprinted on the top.

“Take that,” Kurt commanded in his light lilting voice, and Sebastian did, knocking it back quickly without a single other word of explanation or coercion. Kurt grinned wickedly at his obedient new toy, pulling him by his shirt into a nearby stall and shutting the door behind them. Sebastian was grateful that this was one of the few clubs that had seat covers on their toilets.

The potent little drug didn’t take its time sneaking up on him at all. It pounded into him like a freight train, fizzling in his brain, making his thoughts seem airy and careless. He wanted to touch. He wanted to be touched. He ran his hands up the man’s sides to his arms, up his arms to his wrists, and then dragged his fingertips down again. The long, pale column of this man’s neck begged to be licked, and Sebastian obliged, running the flat of his tongue from the hollow of his neck up to his chin.

His fingers fumbled with Kurt’s fly, bunching the thick denim material in his hands, sliding it across his skin, feeling it sparkle over the palms of his hands. He had to have Kurt, had to feel him in his mouth, on his tongue. He was chasing the insane crackle that raced across his skin, and with an indescribable urgency, he needed it all right now.

Sebastian violently tugged down Kurt’s jeans, pushing him into a sitting position on the lid of the toilet and quickly sinking his face over the man’s crotch, swallowing his cock whole, his entire body shuddering with delight when Kurt gasped into the air and bucked up into his mouth.

The lyrical sound seemed to call to the men just outside the door. They followed it into the restroom and as if they’d been explicitly invited, opened the stall door.

“Occupied!” Sebastian growled with the man’s cock still in his mouth.

“Un-unless you want to watch,” Kurt offered quickly. Sebastian caught the murmur of excitement and agreement rising up around them, and Sebastian decided if his beautiful nymph wanted an audience, than Sebastian would definitely bring his A-game. Sebastian grabbed Kurt’s inner thighs and spread his legs wide, settling between them as far as he could, and took Kurt’s length down his throat with a single, swift swallow.

He heard Kurt’s hands scramble for purchase on the stall walls.

“Holy shit!” Kurt moaned, bucking up and following the heat of Sebastian’s mouth when he pulled away. Sebastian couldn’t help smiling when he heard his little nymph’s foul mouth.

“Oh, God, fucking yes!”

That voice – that broken, pleading song ringing in Sebastian’s ears made him crazy with want for Kurt’s cum down his throat. And the men watching, moaning when Kurt moaned, holding their breaths, more than likely reaching their hands into their own pants to touch themselves, imaging they were Kurt feeling Sebastian’s mouth around them, made Sebastian greedy. He bobbed and sucked, pulling off his cock hard and slow before rushing in quickly again, spit sliding down Kurt’s member as Sebastian started salivating at the taste of him. Kurt’s fingers scratched along Sebastian’s scalp, weeding their way through the thick strands of his hair, silently begging Sebastian to go faster, deeper.

From behind him a low, sustained voice murmured, “That’s got to feel so good.”

Sebastian took Kurt deeper; deeper than he ever believed he could go, no small feat considering Kurt’s impressive length, but Sebastian silently cheered when he felt his nose brush against Kurt’s carefully trimmed hair and the head of his cock nearly gagging him as it reached the back of his throat. His nails dug into Kurt’s thighs, shoving them wider apart, amazed at how flexible his little nymph could be.

“Fuck him,” a man from Sebastian’s right groaned.

Sebastian’s eyes flicked up to meet Kurt’s heated gaze, an impish smile spreading across his pert lips.

“Yeah,” another voice drawled in a low, rough growl, “fuck that little twink up the ass…”

Sebastian’s eyes suddenly grew dark, and he scowled at the derogatory slur, but Kurt read his thoughts. He bent over and whispered, “It’s okay, love. I don’t mind. I want you. Do you want to fuck me?”

Sebastian’s entire body warmed over when Kurt called him ‘love’, and he knew Kurt’s wish would forever be his command.

“Is that even an honest question?” Sebastian asked, grabbing Kurt’s hips and helping him to his feet. “There isn’t any reason I can think of for not wanting to fuck you.”

“Good,” Kurt said, flushed cheeks turning ever pinker. “Great minds think alike.”

Sebastian stripped off his shirt and draped it over the stall wall. He held Kurt against him, the urge to touch and feel overwhelming him. He felt Kurt’s fingers undo the buckle of his jeans, but he didn’t want to back away, didn’t want to leave the heat of Kurt’s skin, the way it seemed to meld with his own when they touched, the way their bodies flowed fluidly together. Kurt giggled as he tried to push Sebastian far enough away to slip a condom on him, eventually having to make due sight unseen. From somewhere over the stall a bottle of lube appeared, and Kurt grabbed a hold of it with a demure, “Thank you.”

Kurt flipped open the lid and squeezed a generous amount into Sebastian’s hand, spreading it over his fingers while Sebastian’s other hand gently stroked Kurt’s back, his tongue lapping lazily over his collarbone.

“Are you still with me, love?” Kurt asked, trying to look into Sebastian’s eyes. Sebastian peeked up with a slight nod.

“Do you want to finger me?” Kurt whispered, not waiting for an answer when he turned in the ring of Sebastian’s one-armed embrace. The idea of fingering Kurt, the thought of having his fingers, tingling with want of touch, deep inside Kurt’s heat, made Sebastian come alive all over again. He didn’t wait, and had he been more lucid, the speed in which he thrust his fingers into Kurt’s body might have bothered him, but Kurt’s gasp of pleasure and the collective moans that surrounded him turned him from a rational man into a creature of wanton lust.

In Kurt’s body was a sensation of completeness that Sebastian had never known. That tiny ring of muscle formed around him, engulfed him. Kurt pushed his ass back against Sebastian’s fingers, needing more of him, his hands gripping the lip of the wall, making the whole stall shake when Sebastian pushed into his body and he trembled. Kurt’s face - his lips curling around silent whimpers, his eyes squeezed shut, his jaw quivering – was the catalyst that broke Sebastian. He needed his cock inside Kurt. He needed it more than he needed anything else.

Sebastian didn’t ask, he just took, removing his fingers and grabbing a hold of Kurt’s hips, finding his entrance without any guidance, almost as if they’d done this together dozens of times. By the time he entered Kurt completely, a dozen men watched, mouths agape as he pounded Kurt’s tight hole. Hands reached out to touch them – some tugged lightly at his hair, fingers ran down his spine, a hand cupped his ass. One bold man came up behind Sebastian and grabbed his hips, at first just content to ride the movements of Sebastian’s undulating body. Then he started shoving Sebastian forward, fucking him into Kurt’s body, moaning softly in Sebastian’s ear every time Kurt whimpered. Unfamiliar lips roamed up and down the back of Sebastian’s neck, humming across his skin, leaving tiny brands everywhere they touched.

“Oh, Kurt,” Sebastian murmured,

“Sebastian,” Kurt muttered back.

The man kissing the back of Sebastian’s neck seemed happy to remain anonymous until Sebastian reached back an arm to latch onto the nape of the man’s neck and pull him forward to meet his lips. They were so different from Kurt’s – not quite as aggressive, but strong, and they slid against Sebastian’s effortlessly, moving over his mouth as if he were reciting a poem.

“Did you drop some ‘E’, sweetheart?” the man uttered against Sebastian’s skin. The velvety voice with the hint of the most enticing accent Sebastian had ever heard had asked him a question, and he found himself struggling to answer. He opened his eyes to meet another pair of shimmering blue eyes, but these were understated and cool like the sky, where Kurt’s steely grey eyes were complicated and spellbinding.

“I think so,” Sebastian panted, suddenly aware that the strong hands that held his hips left to explore the planes of his chest, toying with his nipples, marking him with indents from nails curling into his skin.

“Do you want me to fuck you?” the man asked, the question sounding deliciously dirty with his uniquely elegant voice. “I promise it will feel amazing.”

Normally the answer would have been no, but there was just something about this man, something about the sensual way his voice wrapped around the words he spoke in particular that fired all of Sebastian’s senses at once. He felt that voice burrowing under his skin, coursing like electricity through his veins, jumping from nerve to nerve leaving scorches in its wake. That voice washing over him made Sebastian’s whole body beg for attention.

“Yes,” Sebastian moaned, not stopping his relentless assault on Kurt’s ass. “Yes, please, fuck me…”

“Adam,” the sinful voice with what Sebastian could now determine was a distinctly British accent offered. “My name is Adam, darling.”

“Adam,” Sebastian repeated, letting it drip off of his tongue and over Kurt’s skin as he pecked kisses along his shoulders. “Adam…Adam…”

After a while the sound tickled his head, especially when he said the names of the two men together.

“Kurt…Adam…Kurt…Adam…”

Adam didn’t wait. He slipped on a condom and lubed up quickly, not wasting too much time with a lot of prepping since it was obvious that Sebastian seemed fairly open (from an afternoon spent fingering himself, but no one needed to know). Soon Sebastian’s little song of bouncing both names back and forth just to hear it roll around in his head became a desperate chant as Adam slammed into him, the force barreling him forward into Kurt. Sebastian’s whole body, from his heels which struggled to keep his balance, to the follicles of his hair still tingling where his dark locks were being pulled, combusted, and he didn’t know how he hadn’t just dissolved into a limp pile of sweat and skin and cum.

“Jesus fucking Christ!” he screamed, and the men around them groaned and cursed, some finding partners in the small crowd willing to try the same thing, others fascinated with the way Kurt’s trim, narrow body braced against the wall, absorbing the force of the other two men; how Sebastian’s eyes rolled in his head, or how the blond man taking a place behind them wound muscular arms around the pair as he worked Sebastian open with his cock.

It didn’t matter to Sebastian how it looked. It felt too amazing to be real.

Sebastian wrapped his shaking arms around Kurt’s chest and let Adam fuck him, let his body push him into Kurt, let the darkness swirl behind his eyes, picking up the low lights in the bathroom and the blurring faces of the men staring at them, their voices blending together in a chorus of grunts and obscenities.

“Oh God…oh God…” his own strained voice chanted. “Oh God, Kurt…oh God, Adam…oh God…”

His mouth moved around the words but his voice disappeared, swallowed down deep by the spiraling heat rising in his body, the sensation of tight and perfect around his cock, and full inside his ass. When they met together, when he pushed as far into Kurt’s hole as he could go and Adam used his body to its limit, he was blinded by the sheer ecstasy of it. Kurt’s body was the tinder that lit the fire, and Adam’s body was the fan that built the flame. Without Adam’s strong arms around them Sebastian knew he would fall, but he couldn’t. It would be a crime to break this chain. Sebastian craved more – more touch, more feel, so much skin left untouched, neglected. He wasn’t going to come unless someone touched him all over, stroking over his flesh until it became maddening. He heard Adam chuckle. It rumbled through his body when Sebastian cried out in frustration from need.

“I’ve got you,” Adam murmured, running the pads of his fingertips along his arms, down his chest, circling his hips with manicured nails, pressing his chest into Sebastian’s back as he moved inside him.

Kurt had stopped trying to move a long time ago, content to lean his head back against Sebastian’s shoulder and sigh contentedly. Sebastian gazed down the length of Kurt’s body and saw his pale skin flushed with color from his cheeks, down his neck, over his chest and his abs, pooling down to the head of his hard cock, which he held firmly in his fist, fucking into his grip using the momentum of Sebastian’s body pounding into his.

“I’m going to cum,” Kurt whined, but the warning didn’t come in time. His body convulsed , his cock painting the stall wall with thick white ropes of cum, his entire body bearing down, his hole tightening around Sebastian.

“Sebastian…Sebastian…” he repeated endlessly as he rode out his orgasm at the end of Sebastian’s cock still driving into him.

Sebastian wrapped his hand lightly around Kurt’s throat, tightening an arm around his waist, and tried to hold him steady when Kurt’s knees wobbled and nearly gave out.

“I’m cumming…” Sebastian’s voice failed him. There were so many things he wanted to say but the combination of the drug in his system and the aphrodisiac of fucking and being fucked in front of an audience of men struggling to reach out and touch them while they rutted or otherwise managed their own erections had him keening loudly, biting down into Kurt’s shoulder, enough to sting but not enough to bruise.

It was Adam’s silver-tongue that muttered the words Sebastian couldn’t think of to say.

“Jesus, fuck! You guys look gorgeous together…so gorgeous when you cum…so fucking gorgeous…”

Sebastian felt Adam’s hips stutter, and if he could have cum again, Sebastian would have, but he was struggling to stay upright, even in Adam’s iron embrace. Sebastian eased out of Kurt’s body gently, reluctantly, holding him close until he was sure the man could find his footing. He felt Adam retreat from his body, and even though the beautiful blond man hadn’t necessarily been invited, Sebastian felt suddenly bereft without his body behind him.

Sebastian removed the condom from his shrinking erection, tied it off and pitched it quickly, trying to avoid some of the awkwardness that came with crashing down from such an incredible high, when common sense barges in and makes you realize all of the things that euphoria helped you forget. He cleaned himself off somewhat inefficiently with a wad of tissue, but he was eager to help Kurt before Adam got the idea to butt in and lend a hand.

But Adam kept his distance, pitching his own condom and doing up his pants, content for the moment to watch the two men he had just been with. Sebastian tore off a wad of toilet paper and handed it to Kurt, who took it with a shy smile and a quiet, “Thank you”. Sebastian backed away, giving Kurt some space to breathe and gather himself back together. He spotted Adam’s sky blue eyes watching them, a thoughtful expression on his face. Sebastian wanted to strike up a conversation, but what was there to say other than, “Thanks for the fuck”?

“I envy you,” Adam confided, breaking the tension. “Not many men get to have him.” Adam gestured with his chin over Sebastian’s shoulder where Kurt was cleaning up with a wad of paper towels while several men watched. It was a little creepy the way men gravitated towards him, their eyes following his every move, but Kurt appeared nonplussed by the attention

“Have you?” Sebastian asked, and when the words left his mouth he knew they carried a tone that sounded more possessive than he was allowed.

Adam’s smile widened, matching Sebastian’s possessive streak.

“Not yet,” he responded in his disarmingly smooth, eloquent voice.

Sebastian didn’t like the overconfident way Adam said ‘yet’. It left no doubt in Sebastian’s mind that Adam believed wholeheartedly that someday he would get his chance with Kurt. Sebastian took it as a blatant challenge, and he couldn’t help feeling like Adam might have the upper hand considering the position they had just been in. Sebastian usually didn’t mind competition. He had never had a relationship with anyone that lasted longer than two weeks, and he was foolish to believe that anything between him and Kurt could be different. Still, Sebastian wanted to hate Adam, but without warning Adam leaned in and kissed him on the lips sweetly, an attempt to cool Sebastian’s obvious ire.

“Don’t be angry, sweetheart,” Adam whispered over Sebastian’s mouth. “He’s yours for now, so enjoy him.”

Adam pinched Sebastian’s chin gently between his thumb and forefinger, staring with a strange, unexpectedly significant meaning in his eyes. His gaze flicked past Sebastian to peek at Kurt who peered at the two of them curiously.

“I’ll see you around,” Adam said, letting the hand that cupped Sebastian’s chin trail down his neck to his chest, and rest over his heart. He walked backward to the bathroom door and disappeared out into the crowded club.

“I’m next,” an eager onlooker called, but Kurt shook his head, stepping into Sebastian’s arms, which Sebastian raised reflexively, protectively to surround Kurt’s body.

“Not tonight, gentlemen,” he announced loudly the way an usher might announce the cancellation of a performance, receiving more than a few disappointed retorts. He looked into Sebastian’s blown eyes and smiled. “I think I’m going to continue this someplace private.”

Kurt rose up an inch on his toes and spoke directly into Sebastian’s ear.

“You live near here?” he asked, and Sebastian’s heart stopped.

He was taking this beautiful nymph home.

* * *

 

Kurt wasted no time dragging Sebastian out of the bathroom with his jeans mostly unbuttoned and made a beeline for the bar. He retrieved his t-shirt from the bartender (Sebastian assumed Kurt came to this place a lot if this nearly 300-lb bruiser of a man was willing to hold on to Kurt’s clothes for him) and tossed it on quickly, grabbing Sebastian’s hand and leading him to the front door of the club. Several men tried to persuade Kurt to stay, but he ignored them, treating them as mere obstacles blocking his path; Sebastian wondered how long before he was just another man trailing after Kurt, begging him to stay.

The evening air had gotten a touch cooler, and Sebastian gladly embraced the chill. It cleared his head; made it easier to think.

“So, we’re going to your place,” Kurt said; a statement, not a question.

Sebastian gestured with his arm and made a small, perfunctory bow that had Kurt rolling his eyes and laughing. They walked side by side, hand in hand in silence until they were out of earshot of the pounding music of the nightclub.

“What did you think of Adam?” Kurt asked, and even though the question sounded conversational, Sebastian had a feeling there might be a little more behind it; something more along the lines of, _‘Which did you like better? Fucking me, or being fucked by him?’_

It was a tad adolescent, but extremely endearing.

“He was pretty cool,” Sebastian said, being intentionally vague. Kurt seemed like the kind of young man people fell all over themselves to get to notice them. Sebastian wanted Kurt to chase after _him_ for a while.

“Well, he’s there pretty much all the time if you’re ever up for a round two.”

“Yeah, well…” Sebastian hedged, kicking at a stone in his way, “he wants _you_.”

“I know,” Kurt said, tilting his head to eye Sebastian with a crooked smile, “but he’s not really my type.”

“Oh yeah?” Sebastian returned the look, returned the smile. “What is your type?”

Kurt shrugged, biting his lip coyly.

“Stick around and maybe you’ll find out.”

* * *

 

Sebastian unlocked his apartment door and Kurt grabbed the knob, turning it and breezing in as if he owned the place. Only a foot through the door, he began undressing, kicking off his boots and tossing his clothes carelessly on the floor as he walked through the living room.

“This is a great place,” Kurt said, giving the apartment a cursory glance before fixing his eyes on a pleasantly stunned Sebastian. Completely naked except for the body paint that dried on his well-defined chest along with some darker marks that Sebastian hadn’t noticed (tattoos maybe?), his creamy skin glowed in the rays of moonlight streaming in the through the partially askew blind slats on the windows. He returned to the spot where Sebastian stood just inside the open door. Kurt closed the door and locked it, then started removing Sebastian’s clothes.

“So what do you want to do?” Sebastian asked, curving his hands to mold Kurt’s hips, sliding his palms over his silken skin, letting them travel over the subtle curves of his ass.

“Well, I want to take a shower…with you…” Kurt pulled Sebastian’s shirt up over his arms and head, spinning it around over his head like a burlesque stripper, and then let it fly into the corner of the dark room. “Then we’re going to flip-fuck…” He reached for the button of Sebastian’s jeans. “…and if you’re a good boy I’ll let you lick all my tattoos. I don’t think you got a good enough look at the one that gets longer when I get excited.”

***

Sebastian had to say he was a little fuzzy about a good portion of the evening when he woke up to his alarm at 8:30 in the morning. He had hoped he would wake up wrapped in the arms of his gorgeous nymph, but alas he was alone, and bordering on being dangerously late for his first day of school.

Sebastian looked and felt like a train wreck. His head pounded, his throat burned, and muscles in his body he had never used before ached, but the only regrets he had about the night before is that he never got Kurt’s phone number. He didn’t even know the man’s last name. Sebastian already knew without having to admit it to himself that he would be scoping clubs all over midtown every night until he found Kurt and persuaded the pale beauty to be his.

Sebastian’s haphazard and unshaven (though he preferred to think of it as roguish) appearance would have to do since he didn’t have time to properly shave and he somehow managed to forget to pick up most of his clothes from the cleaners. He had the route from his apartment to school via subway mapped down to the second, but as he was already working with borrowed time, he splurged for a taxi. With all the factors fighting against him – a plethora of one-way streets, lights he couldn’t time, traffic, and a driver who spoke mostly Kurdish – Sebastian made it to the NYU campus in record time.

Sebastian fought through the crowd of students waiting outside the lecture room door, thankful that he was miraculously ten minutes early (thought he was shooting for thirty, but tomorrow was another day). He watched his first ever _Intro to 19 th Century Literature_ class file in while he stood behind the safety of his desk. He wasn’t really nervous. He had shadowed another professor for over a year, helped develop lesson plans, he even taught a few classes. When he first decided to become a teacher, he planned on working at a private high school, but the opportunity to be a professor at NYU, as daunting as it seemed, was just too good to pass up.

Sebastian got plenty of flirty smiles and sidelong glances from the gaggle of moony eyed girls and even a handful of equally moony eyed boys, but Sebastian’s sole focus was getting through the day so he could hit the nightclub scene and track down his mysterious lover.

The last few students dribbled in and Sebastian took a deep, cleansing breath, about to address his class when a very familiar, very welcome sight crossed his line of sight. Sebastian hoped it was him, prayed it was him, was willing to sacrifice numerous future children if it would just be him.

He recognized his hips first, how the denim of his red-dyed jeans clung to them, leaving precious little to the imagination. But Sebastian didn’t need to imagine the gorgeous body that hid beneath his clothes. His tongue still held the memory of licking every inch of those hips, and if his hazy memory served in any small way, Sebastian knew there should be a purple bruise tucked beneath the fabric above his left thigh.

“Kurt?”

The young man walked off just a few more steps before turning and fixing Sebastian with his magical, blue-grey eyes. He cocked his head, batting his eyelashes like a coquette who knew way more than she was telling.

“I’m sorry,” that high lilting voice sang, “have we met?”

Kurt grinned and winked, then turned on his heel, walking up the aisle of stairs and taking a seat in the middle of the lecture room. Sebastian was amazed at how put together Kurt looked, as if he got a full eight hours of sleep and then walked into the classroom off the fashion runway in his designer Paul Smith button down shirt and scarf.

Meanwhile, after downing three bottles of Aquafina, Sebastian still felt like he had slept on the floor of a movie theater.

The hour crawled by slowly in the lecture room. Sebastian tried to stick to his prepared material, only fumbling twice when Kurt crossed and uncrossed his legs, deliberately running one long limb over the other, spreading his legs wide, and then crossing them again. Sebastian remembered spreading his legs for him and sinking down between them, and for a second he licked his lips, his hands flexing in the air, a single modifier left hanging in the air while the class waited for him to continue. He pressed on successfully, speaking animatedly about Bronte and Shelley, quoting from the classics of the era, every eye watching his every move, but the only person whose face he saw clearly was Kurt’s.

Sebastian looked down at his Louis Vuitton watch for the nineteenth time, cheering in his head when he noticed that the class hour was finally over.

“Class dismissed,” he announced, sounding more triumphant than probably any other professor in history ever had on the first day of school, and the roomful of students tittered. Sebastian kept his eyes locked on Kurt, chanting in his head, _‘Don’t leave, don’t leave, don’t leave…’_

_Don’t run away without a good-bye._

_Don’t get lost in the crowd._

_Don’t walk out of my life so quickly again._

Sebastian clapped his hands together hard to get everyone’s attention.

“So, for those of you in need of work experience credits, I’m looking for a T.A. this semester. There’s only one spot available. The sign-up sheet is at my desk.”

Sebastian tapped a white legal pad at the corner of his desk with his index and middle finger, and the students quickly grabbed their things and converged on that spot. Practically the whole class lined up to sign their name on the sheet, but Sebastian cared about only one person – the one still seated at his desk, reading through the course material, his eyes glued to the syllabus as if it were the most interesting read in the world; but the mischievous grin that twisted his lips told Sebastian otherwise.

The last of the nameless, arbitrary students left before Kurt stood from his seat and sauntered down the steps towards Sebastian’s desk, gazing at the dazed professor through long lashes.

“So, what exactly does a T.A. do?” Kurt asked, sliding a brand new ballpoint pen from an open box on the desk and fondling it with his fingers, deftly twirling it from knuckle to knuckle.

“Uh…well,” Sebastian stuttered, watching the movement, mesmerized by it, calculating how much trouble he would get into for tearing off Kurt’s clothes and taking him right here at his desk.

“Well, you would help me grade papers,” Sebastian started, gasping when Kurt stopped twirling the pen in his fingers and nibbled on the cap instead. “A-and put together lesson plans…”

“Hmm,” Kurt said thoughtfully, “that sounds like a lot of work…maybe a lot of late hours… spent _here_?”

Kurt raised his eyebrows, waiting for an answer to his question.

“Probably at my place,” Sebastian confirmed smoothly. Kurt nodded, smiling wide so Sebastian could see the cap of the pen caught between perfect white teeth.

“I see,” Kurt said. He looked down at the paper covered in sloppy signatures and frowned cutely. “Oh, but your sign-up sheet seems to be full. There’s no space for me to write my name.”

Without even glancing down at it, Sebastian tore the sign-up sheet off the pad, crumpled it in his hand, and tossed it in a nearby trash can. Kurt giggled and Sebastian smirked, pushing the pad with a clean top sheet of paper across the desk towards Kurt.

“It seems you are mistaken, young man,” Sebastian said, tapping on the pad with his index finger. “It seems that not a single one of your classmates signed up.”

Kurt shook his head and bent over the notepad on the desk. He neatly wrote his name, taking his time with every letter, following that with his phone number and email address. Sebastian looked over Kurt’s arm as he wrote.

“Kurt Hummel,” Sebastian read. “Well, Mr. Hummel, it looks like you just became my new T. A.”

“Good,” Kurt said, biting his lip. “I’m looking forward to it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The prompt for this was teacher!Seb and student!Kurt


	46. Decisions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for Kurtbastian Week 2014 Day 1
> 
> Summary: Kurt has to make a choice between something he thought he always wanted, and something he never realized he already had.
> 
> Rating: M

_Knock knock knock._

“Kurt? Can I talk to you?”

Kurt’s eyes snapped open at the buttery voice that called his name.

“Uh…” Kurt squeaked, his heart pounding uncomfortably while his brain tried to decide what to say.

“Look…” Blaine foraged ahead, afraid that if he didn’t say what he came to say he’d lose his nerve. “I’m not really good at this, so I’m just going to come out and say it…”

Kurt swallowed hard, staring at his locked door, knowing that the dapper young man with the honey-gold eyes that he had been in love with since he first walked through the doors of Dalton Academy stood just outside.

“You’re my best friend, and I’m so blind…so stupid for not realizing you had feelings for me…”

Kurt grabbed at the cushion to the chair he sat on, his fingernails scraping along the frame, his palms sweating.

“…and I’m sorry it took this long for me to come around…” Blaine continued, even though so far he was getting no feedback, no encouragement.

Kurt rolled his eyes and huffed.

 _‘Long?’_ he thought. _‘It’s been five months! Five months of pining and waiting, of flirty duets and all night phone calls. How much longer did Blaine think he was going to sit around and wait?’_

“But if you’re still willing to give me a chance, I’d really like to take it.”

Kurt was dumbfounded. Why? Why did he have to come to his door with this confession now? Wasn’t this what Kurt had always wanted to hear? But now…

He fought with the words he wanted to say, his whole body tingling.

God, was he trembling?

“Kurt?” Blaine’s voice said softly, and Kurt caught the note of disappointment in it.

Blaine sighed. It was a long, heavy sound.

“I guess I’ll see you at Warbler practice.” Kurt heard Blaine’s hand slide down the wooden door, and then his footsteps as he walked away.

Kurt’s body shook. He squeezed his eyes shut and groaned.

“Are you going to tell him about us?” a silky, breathless voice whispered quietly from where its owner knelt on the floor between Kurt’s legs. Kurt looked down at the devilish smirk and the sparkling green eyes staring up at him. Kurt smiled.

“Are you ever going to be done?” Kurt growled, grabbing a fistful of Sebastian’s chocolate-brown hair and shoving his grinning face back down into his lap. The warmth of his mouth surrounded his cock again, and this time Kurt moaned a little louder.

 _Five months_. Five amazing months of taunts and jabs and insults tempered with secret rendez-vous’s and stolen kisses. Blaine might have been stupid not to see how much Kurt was crushing on him, but Kurt was a complete and utter moron not to realize that every time Blaine turned an oblivious eye to Kurt’s admittedly sad attempts at flirting, that it was Sebastian Smythe and his acerbic tongue always there to soothe the sting.

Kurt just didn’t notice until recently.

“D-do you want me to tell him?” Kurt asked, his hips moving slightly to keep up with Sebastian’s relentless mouth.

Kurt eyed the boy working over him, waiting for a reply. Sebastian shrugged.

“Do what you want, babe,” came his muffled reply.

Kurt didn’t like that. He never liked to hear indecision in Sebastian’s voice; not Sebastian Smythe, the boy who knew what he wanted and went after it. Kurt grabbed Sebastian’s shoulders and pulled him off his cock, whining at the loss of heat and that wickedly talented tongue.

“I want to know what _you_ want,” Kurt said firmly, locking his blue eyes on to Sebastian’s lust-blown ones.

Sebastian shrugged again, but his sheepish grin grew wider.

“It might be nice to bring this relationship out of the closet,” he said. “At least we’d get less annoying surprise visits like that last one.”

Kurt chuckled.

“Alright,” Kurt agreed. “Then at Warbler practice?”

Sebastian nodded.

“Yeah…I mean, this is going to cut severely into my dating scene…”

Kurt smacked him on the arm…or tried, but Sebastian intercepted the hand swinging towards him and planted an open-mouthed kiss on Kurt’s wrist.

“Great, but that’s not for another hour.” Kurt grabbed another fistful of Sebastian’s hair and once again shoved the boy’s head back in his lap. “So get back to work, because you’re still not done.”


	47. My Moonlight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just so you guys know, due to popular demand 'The Idea of You' will have a second and third part. But for now I am foraging on ahead.
> 
> Written for Kurtbastian Week 2014 Day 3
> 
> Summary: This is a Buffy the Vampire Slayer inspired AU focusing on Willow and Oz’s storyline.
> 
> Rating: R (For language, supernatural violence, and talk of sexual situations)

The soft dirt and peat gave Kurt no traction whatsoever as his feet pounded into the ground. He dodged the headstones, gleaming white marble glowing eerily in the moonlight, reflecting off his own alabaster skin and making him look like a specter himself. The sound of sinister heavy breathing filled his ears and he knew the monster was close. He didn’t need to hear it though. He had performed this dance numerous full moons before. He could feel the animal in his blood. It moved when he moved, dodged when he dodged, followed his prints in the ground step for step, matching his pace.

The animal toyed with him, but Kurt was in complete control.

Kurt veered right and his foot sank ankle deep in a patch of fresh manure.

“Ugh!” Kurt groaned, stopping a moment to yank his foot free with a sickening slurp. “No! My vintage powder blue Converse!”

Kurt threw an angry glare over his shoulder.

“You asshole!” he bellowed, but started off again so that the creature wouldn’t gain too much ground. In the dark, where the creature pursued Kurt in the low light and the shadows, Kurt swore he heard a deep, menacing chuckle.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, laugh now,” Kurt mumbled as he reached beneath his jacket and grabbed the gun he had thrust in his waistband. “You’re not going to be laughing in a minute.”

Kurt loaded the weapon with practiced ease; a skill known by a handful of the high school students in town.

Most of the Glee Club were mages, monster hunters, keeping the night safe for the small town of Lima, and it was Kurt’s duty to serve and protect.

This creature, the one that pursued him tirelessly through the cemetery, was Kurt’s responsibility and Kurt’s alone.

Kurt hurdled over a larger stone and heard more groans and breathless pants. He stopped short and looked over at one of the far graves where two half-dressed teenagers were going at it, locked together and moaning into the night.

“Oh…just…yuck!” Kurt grimaced, waving his hands in front of his face to try and dispel the image. “What’s wrong with you people?”

Kurt sighed. Now he’d have to wait and make sure that the animal didn’t go after the lovers instead of him. He tried to school his breathing, keep himself calm and clear his head. Once the animal saw him and he got its undivided attention, Kurt would need to work quickly. He glanced behind him to gauge how far his destination was in relation to where he stood, and when he turned back, the creature emerged from the tree line. Kurt smirked, always impressed by the size and stature of the monster, its silky brown hair glistening in the moonlight, its expressive green eyes searching him out.

The lovers didn’t notice him, wrapped up in their own little world, but the werewolf saw them, turning on them with the shadow of a grin on his snarling lips.

Kurt pulled out the strongest weapon he had in his arsenal against this gigantic werewolf. He bent his head back and howled at the moon. It worked instantaneously. The creature’s head snapped back to stare at him, eyes wide, green irises pushed aside as definite lust overtook them. Kurt spun around and ran knowing the creature was right on his heels, his hot breath steaming out the wrinkles in his jeans.

Kurt dodged razor-sharp claws twice, but tripped and fell in somersaults down the mausoleum stairs. His head knocked on the decaying stone steps, his brain spinning in his skull, he had enough wherewithal to roll into the open cage that had been constructed just for this purpose.

“Stay out of sight!” he called to the blonde cheerleader he knew hid in the shadows. Kurt heard the slight scuffling that told him Brittany heard him. A second of silence was all they got before the hulking beast made its way down the steps. Kurt fought impending delirium to stay awake just a little longer.

Kurt snuffled and whimpered, the sound of a wounded werewolf, and the creature followed the sound of distress to the cage where he lay. Kurt waited until the monster loomed above him, teeth dripping saliva all over the dusty floor.

“Sorry, babe,” Kurt said, raising the gun and shooting the creature in the leg.

The beast reared back and roared, but the tranquilizer worked fast, and he fell to the ground, limbs pawing through the air in an attempt to get up.

“Brittany,” Kurt commanded softly. “Get out…”

“But, Kurt,” the bubbly young woman bounced out from her hiding space, her eyes sweeping back and forth between her friend and the werewolf, still lethal even though it couldn’t get back up on its haunches.

“I said get out,” Kurt growled. “And lock the gate.”

Brittany didn’t want to go. Kurt took too many chances. But she wasn’t going to argue. She climbed out of the mausoleum with one backward glance, and locked the gate behind her.

***

Thin tendrils of morning sunlight lit the inside of the mausoleum, and even though he should probably have a concussion, mage strength had its perks, and Kurt woke with just a pounding headache. He looked at the arms wrapped around him, the naked body curled against him, and smiled. Wary green eyes looked down into his, and the boy in his arms offered a weak smile.

“You had me worried,” the boy said, kissing him gently on the forehead, trying hard not to jostle his lover too much. “I thought this time you weren’t going to wake up.”

“Well, it takes a helluva lot more than a knock to the head to kill me, Bas,” Kurt smirked. “I should know. You’ve tried. And by the way…” Kurt lifted his leg to reveal his ruined shoe.

“Oh, fuck, Kurt,” Sebastian moaned. “I’m sorry. I’ll get you a new pair. I promise. But do you have to wear your best pair of shoes every time you go out at night?”

“We were supposed to be on a date, remember?” Kurt chided, pinching Sebastian on the arm. “Why didn’t you take your potions? You know they’re the only way to stop the change.”

“I did take them,” Sebastian admitted softly. “I don’t think they work anymore.”

“Obviously,” Kurt said with a roll of his eyes. He expected some other taunt or tease, and when none came, Kurt shook his head. “Don’t worry about it, Bas. We’ll just go to Ms. Pillsbury and tell her you need a stronger one.”

Sebastian held Kurt tight and sighed, and Kurt could hear the gears working in his boyfriend’s head.

“Tell me,” Kurt commanded.

“I…I think maybe I should go away…”

Kurt shook his head and held Sebastian closer. They’d had this talk before. They’d probably have it again.

“Sebastian,” Kurt said, trying to prop up on his arms and look into his boyfriend’s eyes, succeeding only in resting his head on the boy’s bare chest. “Why do you come to me when I call? Even with all of our mages, some much stronger than me, why do you come to _me_?”

Sebastian’s whole expression changed, his eyes darting sheepishly away.

“Because you’re my mate.”

“That’s right,” Kurt said. “And you’re mine. Someday we’ll figure out a solution to this, I promise, and if we don’t…”

“Don’t say it,” Sebastian interrupted quickly, but Kurt would have none of that.

“You’ll turn me, and I’ll become like you,” Kurt said finally. Sebastian hated the idea of Kurt becoming a werewolf, not just because he would be a bloodthirsty killer, stalked and hunted, but because becoming a werewolf would mean giving up his powers. Powers he was born with; his only legacy of his dead mother.

Kurt held Sebastian’s head in his hands and turned his gaze up to meet his own. He rested their foreheads together, lips so close to kissing that the slightest motion would have them pressed together, lost in each other’s heat.

“I’m never saying goodbye to you,” Kurt whispered, and Sebastian smiled.

“I love it when you talk cheesy,” Sebastian muttered, and attacked his powerful boyfriend, rolling him over onto his back to deepen the kiss, even when Kurt groaned.

“So, are you determined to ruin the jacket as well?” Kurt mumbled against Sebastian’s lips, but he wasn’t really mad…well, maybe a little, but a kiss from this gorgeous boy was well worth his dry cleaning bill.

“Oh, babe,” Sebastian said softly, unbuttoning Kurt’s jacket and reaching beneath his shirt with rough, callused fingers. “We have two hours until the other mages let us out. I’m determined to ruin the entire outfit by then.”

 


	48. Glory Days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for Kurtbastian Week 2014 Day 2
> 
> Summary: Lacrosse Captain Sebastian and Cheerio Kurt getting it on during a game.
> 
> Rating: R (For sexual situations)

Kurt rolled his eyes at the boy crawling over him, thoroughly underwhelmed.

“So, captain of the lacrosse team?” Kurt drawled. “Is that supposed to impress me enough to let you into my pants?”

“Well, it usually works that way,” Sebastian said, smirking down at the unenthusiastic Cheerio with his legs locked together at the knees. “But if you’re going to be such a bitch about it, maybe I’ll have to find something else to impress you.”

“I can’t imagine what.” Kurt turned his head when Sebastian leaned in to kiss him, and he attacked Kurt’s neck, completely undeterred. Kurt whined softly. He couldn’t help it. Kisses to the neck had always been his weakness.

“Maybe it would help if we were wearing a little less clothing,” Sebastian suggested, fiddling with the hem of Kurt’s uniform shirt.

“So what you’re telling me is that there’s something beneath that uniform of yours that’s going to impress me?”

Sebastian had given up trying to match wits with Kurt, deciding instead to lure him out of his tight little uniform with more kisses to the neck, sucking gently along his jawline.

“No, no, no,” Kurt said, putting a hand to Sebastian’s chest and pushing him gently away. “None of that. If I get back out there with hickeys on my neck, my name’s going to be mud for sure.”

“Come on, Kurt,” Sebastian whined. “Give me something.”

Kurt leaned up and kissed him, slipping his hands beneath Sebastian’s jersey and running his fingers lightly over his abs, each one so extraordinarily defined that Kurt could count them by feel alone. Sebastian’s hands ran down Kurt’s back, sliding beneath his tight pants. The screams of the cheerleaders and the roar of the crowd swallowed Sebastian’s moan at the expanse of creamy skin and tiny undies hiding beneath the fabric.

“A thong, Kurt?” Sebastian toyed with the thin strap that slid between Kurt’s pert ass cheeks.

“Well, all you’re wearing underneath your pants is a jock strap,” Kurt sighed, leaning back to give Sebastian more access to his neck.

“And yet you’re not checking it out.”

“Fuck you, I just had my nails done,” Kurt smirked, and despite his protests, Sebastian sucked a dark mark right beneath his chin.

“You asshole!” Kurt barked as he pulled away. Sebastian put a hand over Kurt’s mouth, giggling and looking around them.

“You don’t want the rest of your precious Cheerios to find their captain on his back with a player from the other team, do you?”

As if on cue, the Cheerios cheered, and Kurt’s eyes went wide. He shook his head back and forth emphatically.

“Good, now you’re going to be a good little queen bee and let me go down on you,” Sebastian whispered, traveling down Kurt’s body and taking the top of his tight pants with him, uncovering the red thong beneath.

“A-aren’t they going to need you on the field soon?” Kurt stuttered, listening for the sound of the announcer calling the second quarter of the game.

“That’s J.V., babe. I’m Varsity. We still have plenty of time.”

Sebastian blew hot air through the fabric of the thong, and Kurt’s hips bucked up to chase the heat of his mouth.

“Oh God,” Kurt groaned as Sebastian took advantage of Kurt lifting his hips to pull the thong down, his eyes glittering wickedly as he looked up at the gorgeous cheerleader beneath him. Just as Sebastian’s mouth poised over Kurt’s hard and waiting cock, the sound of the crowd cheering disappeared.

“God, how much longer are you two freaks going to be?” Santana droned.

Sebastian dropped his head, looking up at her silhouette through the curtain that divided Kurt’s room from the living room.

“What, do you have to take a pill?” Sebastian barked.

“No, but some of us have lives, and no time to deal with your creepy dress-up fantasy.”

“Look, Lopez, I’m paying you and Babette $50 to pretend to be cheerleaders for one hour so I can get it on with my boyfriend. It’s only been ten minutes.”

“Yeah, ten minutes of my life I’m never getting back, and by the way, no amount of scrubbing is going to get the slime of your guys’ deviant sex play off my skin.” Kurt flopped back onto the blanket they had laid out on the wood floor, squeezing his eyes shut. “And might I also mention, I swore when I left high school that I would never put this uniform on again.”

Kurt sat up and whined at the withering state of his erection.

“First of all, Santana,” he intervened, “I never heard you make such a vow.”

“Well, just because you didn’t hear it doesn’t mean it’s not true.”

“Also,” Kurt continued without stopping, “I’ve seen you _sleep_ in that thing.”

“Only when Britt-Britt comes over…”

“And finally, we can’t even see you, Santana. You don’t _have_ to wear it.”

“Au contraire mon Cher,” she said, and Kurt could see her shadow point thoughtfully to the ceiling, “I am an up and coming Broadway star, and as such, I need to practice my method acting.”

“Understudy!” Rachel butted in from her place on the couch. “You’re just the _understudy_ , but I, too, must protest on the side of realism as a serious actress practicing the craft. I mean, McKinley didn’t even have a lacrosse team. You two never would have met.”

“Hence the point of the role play, baby Barbra,” Sebastian pointed out. “How else can I bang the hottest cheerleader in McKinley High history?”

Kurt smiled shyly when Sebastian turned his lust-blown eyes back his way.

“Well, first you start by climbing down off of Lady Hummel and buying me dinner.”

Kurt gasped and Sebastian pinched him on the ass.

“Look, we all know you actually have nothing better to do, Santana,” Sebastian said, “and I imagine Rachel has always wanted to be a cheerleader, so why don’t you guys just turn the t.v. back up and let us get to getting, okay?”

“I don’t think you’re hearing me,” Santana protested. “If you guys want to relive your pathetic glory days that’s fine, but don’t involve innocent bystanders…”

“What if I give you both another $50?” Sebastian offered, moving back over his boyfriend’s crotch, trying to revive his erection.

“Go! Titans! Go, go, Titans!”

Sebastian chuckled when he heard Santana smack Rachel on the arm and hiss, “Cheer, hobbit. The faster they get their rocks off, the faster I gets my hundred bucks.”

Sebastian looked up at Kurt whose face had suddenly become glum.

“What is it, babe?” Sebastian climbed back up to hold his boyfriend’s face in his hands and kiss the frown off his face.

“Is this really pathetic?” Kurt asked.

“Nah,” Sebastian said, returning back to that spot on Kurt’s neck that he knew would rouse him from his sulky mood instantly. “As long as your ass looks hot in that uniform, I’m always going to want to fuck you in it. But next time I think we’ll hire new cheerleaders.”


	49. The Last Scion - Prologue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for Kurtbastian Week 2014 Day 3
> 
> Summary: Based loosely on a story I wrote a million years ago. Kurt is the last Scion, and Sebastian is his protector.
> 
> Rated R (For talk about sex, language, supernatural elements, and loose interpretation of religious themes)

“Kuuurrrrtttt,” Sebastian’s voice sang up to Kurt from somewhere in the vicinity of the kitchen/dining room downstairs. “Oh, Kuuurrrrttt.” Kurt smiled as he continued to fold towels in the master bedroom, shaking his head at the ridiculousness of the man lurking in the house when he should be resting.

“Sebastian,” Kurt called down without stopping his task. “I thought you were up here taking a nap. You were awake half the night preparing those potions.”

“No, I couldn’t sleep,” Sebastian whined. “Come down here so we can make out.”

Kurt rolled his eyes, but as always, he took Sebastian’s teasing in his stride. Sebastian could be described as many things – loyal, kind, intelligent, a fierce protector – but he was also a constant and incurable flirt (at least where Kurt was involved), and he was getting worse and worse as time went on.

Or maybe it was just that he was comfortable with their current situation – finally on the road to owning their own house, better rested and more relaxed than they had been in ages, the days of always running from danger, of living from seedy motel room to seedy motel room, with one eye looking back over their shoulders, seemed to be behind them.

So flirting with his husband could be seen as a normal thing in most parts of the world – if the relationship Kurt and Sebastian had could be considered _normal_.

It was normal for them, and that’s all that mattered.

Kurt and Sebastian had been raised together, side by side, by the same religious order, for a good portion of their formative years. They had been brought to the temple on the same day and immediately made a connection. It was because of Kurt that Sebastian made the decision to become a priest in the first place.

Sebastian pledged to do whatever it took to protect Kurt, even at the risk of his own life.

It was no secret that, for Sebastian, only a boy of eight when he first laid eyes on Kurt, meeting the Scion turned out to be love at first sight. And even if Kurt never admitted it, it was probably the same for him, too. They had been away from the temple, on a mission together, for over ten years – fugitives from pretty much everything in life they ever knew.

Sebastian never hid his regard for Kurt, how much he needed him, how much he loved him, and Kurt didn’t shy away from admitting his own feelings, though in subtler, quieter ways. They shared a passion for each other, spent nights talking on end about fantasies they had of being together intimately, of making a real life with one another. But Kurt and Sebastian couldn’t forget that Kurt was the Scion, the chosen, the defender of the world. That title hung over their heads like a dagger tied to a fraying thread, waiting to drop at any moment. Kurt’s mission was one of sacrifice, and even though they wore rings proclaiming their devotion to one another, it was a vow that could not be consummated.

Not yet.

But that vow would last for as long as their love for one another lasted, and that would be an eternity.

Neither priest nor Scion knew what exactly Kurt was expected to do when the time came, or what would happen to him afterward. What they did know is he was the _last_ Scion. Humanity’s final defense against evil.

If he failed, no one in the world would have a future.

No member of their order ever talked to Kurt about what would come, about what his life was going to be like when all was said and done. Kurt had suspected early on that whatever happened at the end of their mission, he wouldn’t _have_ a future. Even if he won the battle against evil, he would probably not survive. It was a struggle as well as a journey, especially with the man he loved as his guardian. For his part, Kurt had to remain pure, untouched, for his mission to be successful. But that ban didn’t extend to his mind; it didn’t keep him from daydreaming about being wrapped naked in the arms of his priest, spending long, lazy days worshipping each other.

The order didn’t hold priests to the same standard as the Scion. It was believed that in order for the priests to keep their minds focused on their tasks, they needed the temptation of unknown arousal and unexplored desire removed, so they were required one act of sexual intimacy. They held a big ceremony – a feast, music, ceremonial robes, the whole nine yards. Kurt didn’t know too much about it. He didn’t want any part in it. He thought it was a medieval concept, forcing the acolytes, only boys, to give up their virtue, leaving the priests no right to choose whether they wanted to participate or not.

Besides, the idea of watching Sebastian make love to someone else broke his heart too much for him to attend.

Whatever the actual purpose of the ceremony, whatever it was supposed to accomplish, it didn’t seem to work on Sebastian. Sebastian loved Kurt. He wanted Kurt. Losing his virginity to a nobody didn’t diminish that.

“Come on, Kurt,” Sebastian persisted, his voice morphing into something different - melodic and smooth, with a hint of compulsion to it, “come down here and let me lick you. I promise I won’t let you cum.”

Kurt swallowed hard, dropping the towel he was holding on the bed. That didn’t sound like his Sebastian. The voice was his, but he didn’t speak like that – that crude, that crass, not out loud. Sebastian made no secret of his desire for Kurt and his disdain for their mission, but he’d never said anything overtly sexual like that before. He respected Kurt and the relationship they maintained.

And yet, those words lit a match inside Kurt’s stomach, and the more he thought about it – being laid bare and vulnerable with Sebastian’s mouth doing all sorts of ungodly things to him – he felt every inch of his insides burn, and the power within him, one that lit his skin and his body with a terrible blue flame, started to flicker.

“Sebastian”, Kurt chided, his voice breaking, “that’s not…that’s not funny. You know I want to, but I can’t. Don’t make this harder for me than it already is.”

“Kurt,” Sebastian taunted in that rough, seductive voice Kurt had only dreamt about but never heard before, “come down here and let me take care of you. I’ll hold you in my arms, undress you slowly…”

An image of Sebastian undressing him, kissing down Kurt’s body as he stripped him of his clothes, filled Kurt’s mind, and even if there was nothing he could do about it, it lured him out. His body needed it. His power wanted it. Kurt walked away from the bed and out on to the second floor landing to hear Sebastian’s voice better.

“You know you want me,” Sebastian continued. “You want my lips on you. You want my hands on your skin. You want me to spread you open and have my way with you…”

Kurt harkened to that voice, step by step, hands gripping the railing until his arms shook and his knuckles turned white. Sebastian’s voice had a strange, undeniable edge to it. It called to Kurt, pulled him; he felt helpless against it. He reached the stairs, preparing to put a foot down on the first one, when arms grabbed him – one hand clamping over his mouth and another around his waist, dragging him backward into one of the darkened bedrooms. Kurt heard the door lock and turned on his attacker, shocked and confused to be staring into the familiar green eyes of his priest.

“Seb—“

“Shh,” Sebastian hushed the Scion, putting him on high alert. “I felt it when it materialized. It’s downstairs in the kitchen. I don’t know what kind of demon it is, but it’s powerful, I’ll tell you that.”

“Then…then how come _I_ didn’t feel him?” Kurt asked with alarm.

“I’m not sure,” Sebastian said, looking confused about that, too. “Maybe he’s found a way to block you, a way around your defenses, but it seems he might have underestimated me a little.”

“Well, if he could get into the house, why didn’t he just come upstairs then?” Kurt asked, backing away from the bedroom door.

“I don’t know,” Sebastian admitted. “Maybe with the layers of prayers and protection spells, he can’t make it up this far.”

_Creak._

Both men turned at the sound of footsteps climbing up the stairs.

“Well, fuck,” Sebastian sighed, grabbing at a handful of his hair in frustration. He grabbed a bottle of holy water from the bedside table and doused the floor right in front of the door. As an extra measure, he poured mounds of white salt in a line at the doorway, a trick the priests learned from the white witches.

“Get up on the bed,” Sebastian commanded. He chanted a spell to lock the door, and Kurt complied, though climbing up on to the bed with a half-dressed Sebastian wasn’t helping the state of his lingering arousal.

_Creak._

…

_Creak._

“Kurt,” the fake Sebastian’s voice called out, and now that Kurt could hear it closer, more clearly, he sensed the veiled edge to it – a dark, demonic glamour used to mask its true source. Kurt felt the power within him rise to the surface, looking for a fight, but Sebastian patted his arm in a warning.

“No,” Sebastian said. “You can’t. If you do, you might end up summoning a whole horde. Let me handle this.”

Kurt bit his lip and extinguished the blue flame creeping up his body, the power raging inside him displeased at being shut away. Kurt wrapped his arms around his chest tightly, and Sebastian wrapped his arms around Kurt’s body, ready to do anything to protect him.

The footsteps stopped in front of the door.

“Kuuuurrrtttt…come out and pla-ay…”

A second of silence – tense, foreboding - fills the room, lowering the temperature of the air around them, chilling its occupants to the bone. They continue to wait, preparing for a fight, but nothing happens – no noise, no footsteps, no voice. Kurt held his breath, hoping that the demon gave up and went away, though he’d never heard of a demon who could be stopped by some salt, some water, and a wooden door. Suddenly, a foul stench filled the air, making Kurt’s mouth water, as a black fog seeped in beneath the locked door. From between the wood slats of the hardwood floor, decomposers rose up from the earth: centipedes, millipedes, roaches, and darkling beetles, clicking their glossy exoskeletons, scuttling toward the bed. Kurt shivered, curling in on himself. Sebastian’s eyes burned with the same blue flame as Kurt’s, called forth from Kurt’s body, fighting to be let free, and he struggled to keep it at bay. Exposing the blue fire was what the demon wanted. A lick of it would summon every dark creature from every dimension possible. The fog reached the line of salt and holy water, and an audible ‘hisssss’ split the air, along with a surprising groan of pain.

“Scion…” The voice transformed into an essence, vile and cruel, laced with a venom Kurt could feel prickling his skin, “your beloved priest won’t be around to protect you forever. I will catch him when he least expects it and skin him alive. Then I _will_ have you. Sooner or later, you will be mine.”

The black fog seeped out beneath the door, filtering away, the numerous insects retreating back beneath the boards and disappearing into the dark.

Sebastian felt the demon leave, felt it disapparate into thin air, but he still held tight to Kurt’s trembling body.

“We’ll have to leave now,” Kurt muttered sadly. Sebastian bit his tongue hard. He wanted to yell and curse. He wanted to lash out at something and punch it hard. They’d managed to stay in one place for almost a year this time, and Kurt loved this little house. It reminded him of the place he had lived with his father before he died, before the forces of evil found them and killed him in their quest to capture Kurt. For the first time in years, Kurt had allowed himself to feel settled, to feel safe. They were beginning to believe that if they stayed quiet, if Kurt didn’t use his power, then the things and people searching for him might forget about him.

The battle between good and evil that Kurt was born to fight might never happen if he simply disappeared.

Sebastian hated having the rug pulled out from under him.

“Yes,” Sebastian said, trying to stay strong. “But don’t worry. We’ll find another house just like this one. Or better. I promise.”

Kurt nodded and fell painfully silent.

“Don’t listen to him, Kurt,” Sebastian whispered. “He can’t get to you as long as I’m here. As long as I’m alive. I promised you once that I’d make a future for you. I’ll find a way.”

Sebastian placed a kiss in Kurt’s hair. He thought of the things the demon had said. The voice wasn’t his, but the words definitely were. Wanting to be that way with Kurt, wanting to undress him, to touch him, to lick him mercilessly until he screamed Sebastian’s name – all of those things came straight from the dream Sebastian was having when the demon appeared. But he didn’t want just that. Sebastian wanted a happily ever after for Kurt. He was determined to find it, one way or another.

“I won’t let him hurt you,” Kurt said, his voice shaking. “I don’t care who comes for me. I won’t let him touch you.”

“Of course, you won’t,” Sebastian said, nuzzling his nose in the soft skin at the base of Kurt’s neck. “You’ll protect me, and I’ll protect you. We’ll protect each other.”

“For as long as we both live?” Kurt whispered, trying for a smile.

“I’m yours, Scion,” Sebastian whispered with another kiss. “My life, my body, my heart, my soul, have always been yours, and they will always be yours.”

Kurt sniffled, closing his arms tighter around Sebastian’s, and Sebastian’s heart fell.

They laid together in the dark, letting time drip by while Sebastian made plans to uproot their lives once again and find a place where he could keep Kurt safe.


	50. Sebastian and The Last Scion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for Kurtbastian Week 2014 Day 3
> 
> Summary: This is a second part I wrote for my Kurtbastian Week one-shot The Last Scion, by anon request, detailing 'the ceremony' and how Sebastian was chosen to be Kurt's protector.
> 
> Rated M (For talk about sex, language, supernatural elements, and loose interpretation of religious themes)

Kurt fidgeted, watching through narrow eyelids as Sebastian adjusted the collar of his ceremonial robe.

“If you’re going to be naked anyway, why do they make you dress up?” Kurt groused. Sebastian turned to peek over his shoulder at Kurt with a smirk on his lips, more sheepish than condescending.

“Actually, I’m not wearing anything beneath the robe,” Sebastian commented.

 _‘Oh,’_ Kurt mouthed, turning his back on his friend.

Sebastian watched Kurt’s body as he turned – his shoulders slumping, his head bowing, eyes that Sebastian couldn’t see trained down to the floor.

“Look…” Sebastian came up behind Kurt and wrapped secure arms around his chest, trying hard not to press his body against Kurt’s and make him any more uncomfortable. “This is just a technicality. It doesn’t mean anything. It will be over and done with, and then I’ll come back here and we can watch a movie or something.”

“Can we watch _Moulin Rouge_?” Kurt asked quietly. Sebastian smiled.

“Whatever you want, Scion.”

Kurt’s head popped up.

“Why do you call me that now?” Kurt asked. He had noticed more and more that his friend referred to him more by his title than by his name.

“The priests want us to,” Sebastian said, hooking his chin over Kurt’s shoulder.

“Well, _I_ don’t want you to.” Kurt turned in Sebastian’s arms and looked deep into his emerald green eyes. “We’re here alone. I’m not Scion here. I’m just Kurt. So call me Kurt. Okay?”

Sebastian pecked a kiss to Kurt’s forehead.

“Whatever you want, Kurt,” Sebastian said. “Of course, I could just call you gorgeous. I think it suits you better.”

Kurt smiled weakly, but he looked down the length of Sebastian’s gaudy ceremonial robe and the smile fell.

“Don’t,” Kurt said. “Don’t…just…call me Kurt.”

Sebastian nodded. No reason to break Kurt’s heart more than it already was.

Three quick knocks on Sebastian’s cell door interrupted their private moment.

“Come in,” Sebastian sighed, turning to greet the man who would usher him away from Kurt and the one moment they would never get the chance to share.

“It’s time, Sebastian,” the elderly man said, his voice clipped and curt, thick with his obvious disdain and disrespect. It wasn’t really a mystery that Sebastian wasn’t necessarily a favorite among the other priests, and it amused Sebastian to no end to use that to his advantage. “Have you properly prepared yourself?”

“Do you mean am I ready to go fuck some guy I don’t know and will never see again?” Sebastian asked, not even trying to hide his bitterness. “Then the answer to that is yes, sir.”

Shielded behind Sebastian’s body, hidden from view, Kurt flinched.

“You know, I don’t even see why they bother,” the man sneered. “You are never going to become protector for…”

Kurt stepped to the side, revealing his presence, seething at the surly man who had insulted his friend. Kurt might be thin in stature, he might be quiet in nature, and he might seem small, but angry Kurt – Last Scion Kurt – could be downright intimidating. In the dark confines of the small cell, the man standing in the doorway could swear he saw Kurt’s blue eyes glow.

The priest’s mouth dropped, his face going so pale it turned an ashen grey.

“Sc-scion,” he stuttered, bowing low in front of Kurt. Kurt looked at Sebastian’s amused face and rolled his eyes.

“Grumbald.” Kurt acknowledged the man with a stunted nod. “You may leave us. I will be walking my friend to the temple.”

Sebastian’s face went pale as well and he swallowed hard. They had discussed this. Kurt wanted nothing to do with the ceremony, wanted nothing to do with watching his best friend make love to someone else, especially with the unspoken feelings that seemed to swirl around them whenever they were together. In his heart, Sebastian knew Kurt loved him. Kurt never had any reason to doubt Sebastian’s feelings. Sebastian told him every single day.

“But nothing,” Kurt growled with a stomp of his foot and a hint of restrained tears in his voice. “Be gone or I’ll fuck him myself.”

Sebastian chuckled once nervously, but Kurt might as well have threatened to kill the elderly priest, who looked close to vomiting at the thought of the chosen one, the last Scion, sullying himself with a common priest and destroying a mission that the order had been preparing millenia for.

“As you wish, Scion,” the man replied, tripping over himself to back out of the cramped quarters, keeping his head bowed while simultaneously scowling at Sebastian. Sebastian plastered a bright, patronizing smile on his face, raised a hand, and waved.

“Bye-bye,” Sebastian sang out as the door slammed shut.

Kurt sighed, falling back into his friend’s arms when they were finally alone.

“You better watch that mouth, Sci…Kurt,” Sebastian said, placing a secret kiss in Kurt’s hair. “They’re going to wash it out.”

“Yeah, well, I’d like to see them try,” Kurt said, his voice muffled by the multitude of material draped over Sebastian’s body that Kurt hid his face in.

Sebastian wanted nothing more than to stay with Kurt forever, but he had responsibilities – they both did - and as ridiculous as this ceremony was, the faster he got it over with, the faster he would return to Kurt.

“Come on,” Sebastian said, looping his arm through Kurt’s, “walk with me.”

Kurt nodded, brushing away a tear from the corner of his eye with his fingertips. Another tear broke free to take its place and Sebastian caught that one, bringing the drop to his lips and kissing it away. Sebastian’s eyes looked a bit longer at Kurt’s somber face, wishing he could kiss Kurt’s lips instead.

They walked in silence across the courtyard, arm in arm, to the temple lit with torches along the outside and a single line of priests awaiting Sebastian’s arrival. Most of the priests eyed the two of them suspiciously. Kurt and Sebastian had been raised together - they had been discovered at roughly the same time - but they seemed to have no other friends among anyone else in the order save for Sebastian’s mentor, Tellemband, who hated every day the vows and duties that would forever keep these young men apart. It was unavoidable. Kurt had a job to do, an important one, and if Tellemband had any say in the matter, Sebastian would be right by his side.

It was simply a matter of convincing everyone else.

Tellemband stepped forward, knowing Sebastian had no real supporters in the group gathered, and smiled as genuine a smile as he could muster.

“Are you ready, my son?” he asked Sebastian gently.

Sebastian took one last glance at Kurt and tried to look supportive, but the edges of his mouth quivered beyond his control.

“Yes, sir,” Sebastian said, and from what he could see, something in the depths of Kurt’s blue eyes shattered.

Tellemband turned to Kurt with the same genuine smile.

“Scion,” he said, greeting Kurt formally with a slight bow, “will you be…”

“No, I will not,” Kurt snapped. He tried to pull his arm out of Sebastian’s grasp but Sebastian held him, circling his arms around him and holding him tight. The other priests gasped that Sebastian would have the gall to manhandle the Scion so familiarly, but Tellemband simply shook his head.

Sebastian knew he shouldn’t. He knew in many ways it was too, too cruel, but he couldn’t leave Kurt with any doubts.

“It’ll be you, Kurt,” Sebastian whispered. “It doesn’t matter who I’m with, it will always be you.”

Kurt crumbled in Sebastian’s arms, sobbing like a wounded animal. He wrenched free of Sebastian’s embrace and, with a tormented cry escaping his throat, ran off into the darkness. Sebastian hung his head. He felt that cry rip through his entire body. Full of Kurt’s boundless despair, it echoed off the walls of the other temples around. Sebastian’s mind followed it, trying to stay connected to Kurt for as long as possible. When it faded, he heard the other priests murmuring their disapproval.

“Too selfish…”

“Too connected…”

“…never be a protector…”

Tellemband put his hands on Sebastian’s shoulders and led him past the glowers and glares of the other priests and into the temple.

“Don’t you dare listen to them,” he whispered into his young charge’s ear. “There’s more written into this prophecy then they’ll ever understand because it is meant to be read with the heart, not the head, and I don’t think they have any.”

Tellemband led Sebastian down a long, dimly lit hall that opened up into a large theater, much like a coliseum, where other priests and acolytes of the order had gathered to bear witness to the ceremony. In the center of the theater, seated on an intricately woven rug, was a man, older than Sebastian by only a few years, already naked, beautiful if Sebastian was willing to admit it. But when he looked at the man with the come hither hazel eyes and the tanned skin, all Sebastian let himself see was Kurt – _his_ Kurt, sitting on a picnic blanket in the sun out in the courtyard, smiling up at him, blue eyes sparkling as they caught the light. This was the fantasy Sebastian had created to get through this – a fantasy of Kurt and their first time together, a first time that would never be real. In Sebastian’s dreams, there was no divide, no duty, no responsibilities. Kurt wasn’t the Scion and Sebastian wasn’t a priest. They were just men, together, in love, sharing a private moment, enjoying each other.

Sebastian let himself get lost to this fantasy, let himself believe that the arms reaching out to him were Kurt’s. He dropped his robe and the man on the rug gasped at his first sight of Sebastian’s body. Sebastian’s wasn’t like many of the other priests who didn’t value physical exercise over mental fitness. Sebastian wasn’t soft; he wasn’t spindly or weak. He was strong, muscular, every inch an athletic man in his prime. Sebastian, his mind filled with images of Kurt, approached the man on the rug eagerly, and the man grinned like the cat that had found the hidden bucket of cream. The man rolled onto his stomach, his body already prepared for Sebastian’s use. The priests and their consorts had been told there would be no eye contact, no kissing. This was about sex, not intimacy. Sebastian settled down between the man’s spread legs and with trembling hands guided his hard cock into the man’s body.

“Kurt,” Sebastian sighed, needing to say his name to keep the dream from disappearing. The man’s incredulous face snapped around to meet Sebastian’s closed eyes.

“My name’s not…”

Sebastian put a hand on the man’s back between his shoulder blades and shoved his face firmly into the rug. He didn’t need that foreign voice destroying his carefully constructed fantasy.

“Kurt,” Sebastian murmured, moving slowly in and out of the nameless man’s body, and at that point the man beneath him could care less what Sebastian called him. “My Kurt…”

Tellemband smiled at the sour men beside him.

“I told you,” he said, beaming at the young man who continued to moan Kurt’s name. “It has to be him.”

“He’s in love with the Scion?” a faceless voice asked in disgust.

“He’ll jeopardize the mission,” another grumbled. “He’ll put his own needs ahead of everything else.”

“Never,” Tellemband said, turning to the row of men. “He’ll protect the Scion with his life, I’m sure of it.”

Grumbald, sitting amid the row of priests, his expression a twisted, calculating grimace, huffed loudly.

“We’ll see,” he said, turning away from the scene before him and heading out of the temple.

* * *

 

Sebastian did up the buttons to his robe, not even sparing a glance for the sated man with the goofy smile reclining back on the rug.

“You know, they say the priests and their courtesans can hang around and get to know each other a little better,” the man mentioned. “Did you want to…”

“I have somewhere I need to be,” Sebastian said quickly, finishing the last of his buttons and turning around, walking headlong right into another priest.

“Are you going to see the Scion?” the man asked with a sneer and a raised eyebrow.

“What does it matter to you?” Sebastian bit out angrily.

The man glared at Sebastian, but then his lips curled into a vicious grin.

“Well, I guess it’s best that you spend as much time with him as you can,” the priest said with a touch of grim humor. “He has a mission to begin, so he probably won’t be around much longer.”

Sebastian’s whole body went cold.

 _Kurt_ wouldn’t be around much longer.

Implying that Kurt was leaving and Sebastian would be staying behind.

Sebastian brushed roughly past the priest and ran from the temple. He had intended on stopping by his own cell and showering first to get every last trace of that whore off his skin, but he didn’t have time. That priest knew something…something Kurt must already know by now. Sebastian had to find out for himself.

Sebastian raced through the courtyard and past the dormitories, into the rectory where Kurt was kept.

Sebastian heard Kurt’s muffled crying before he even approached the door. Sebastian knocked and the crying quieted into choked sobs.

“Kurt,” Sebastian called softly. “Kurt, can I come in?”

After long moments of silence, Sebastian thought that Kurt might not open the door, but then it creaked open slowly. Kurt took one look at Sebastian and threw himself into the young priest’s arms. Sebastian wanted to push Kurt away. He felt dirty and ashamed. He had convinced himself that he had made love to Kurt in order to survive that ceremony with his sanity intact, but the truth was he hadn’t. He had lain with a whore - a common whore. But Kurt’s arms were insistent, pulling Sebastian into the room and sitting him onto the hard bed. Sebastian couldn’t refuse him.

“I’m so sorry,” Sebastian groaned into Kurt’s hair. “I’m so, so sorry.” He felt tears roll down his cheeks but Kurt shook his head.

“It’s not that,” Kurt murmured, though Sebastian could tell by the tone in his voice it might have still been _that_ , if only just a little. “Grumbald came back after you left. H-he said that I’m starting my mission t-tomorrow.” Kurt looked up at Sebastian, his cheeks red, his eyes watery. “I’m leaving, Bas. I’m leaving…with Alistair.”

Sebastian’s whole body went rigid, his teeth clenched, his head filling with vile, hateful thoughts. _Alistair_ \- that whimpering, weak suck-up chosen to protect _his_ beautiful Kurt. Sebastian couldn’t ignore the fact that Alistair also happened to be Grumbald’s pupil. That no-good excuse for a priest. He had this planned out. He did this to them. He had intended on finding a way to keep them apart all along.

Sebastian refused to believe that this was happening. He had always imagined that he and Kurt would end up together. He was so sure of it, that even now he couldn’t convince himself that things would turn out any different.

Kurt’s body trembled and Sebastian realized that he had spent far too much time lingering in his loathing.

“Don’t worry, Kurt,” Sebastian managed in a voice that sounded weak even to himself. “I won’t let them split us up.”

“B-but…” Kurt whimpered.

“But nothing,” Sebastian said firmly. “I don’t care what they say. They can’t take you away from me.”

Sebastian held Kurt’s limp body at arm’s distance, noticing how much Kurt had already given up. There had to be something else. Grumbald must have said something else. He had never seen Kurt like this before, but he decided now wasn’t the time to ask.

“Let me go shower and change,” Sebastian suggested quietly, “and then we’ll climb into bed and think of a solution.”

Sebastian wanted to sound confident, but other than running away he couldn’t really imagine anything they could do.

But if running away was their only option, Sebastian would take it.

“Can I come with you?” Kurt asked. “And just sit on the floor and wait?”

Sebastian sighed. His original plan had been to turn the shower water up to scalding and scream out his frustration, to cry until he had no tears left, to mourn something that never had a hope of being, but he couldn’t say no to Kurt. He would never deny him anything.

“Sure,” Sebastian said, offering Kurt his hand and pulling him to his feet. “Whatever you want.”

* * *

 

A sharp white light broke through Sebastian’s dreamless sleep, and he curled over Kurt’s body protectively, preparing for a fight. He had made a decision; he was determined that there was no way anyone was taking Kurt from him, Scion or no. He would follow Kurt to the ends of the Earth, he would give up his place in the order, even if it meant discommunication…even if it meant death.

“Sebastian? Kurt?” a soft voice muttered, rousing them further awake. “You have to get up. You have to go _now_.”

Sebastian blinked his eyes open and saw Tellemband, backlit by the bright light, a duffel bag open in his hands as he shoved clothes from the dresser into it along with other odds and ends.

Sebastian shook Kurt, but Kurt whined, not wanting to leave the peace of his dreams to face the reality of a life without Sebastian.

“No, Bas,” he murmured.

“Kurt…babe…it’s Tellemband. He says we have to leave.”

That only vaguely caught Kurt’s attention. He opened one eye, watching Sebastian’s mentor shove a few more things into the nearly ancient, olive drab military duffel and zip it shut. He turned back onto his side, hiding his head beneath his pillow.

Tellemband grabbed Sebastian’s arm, pulling him upright from the bed and away from Kurt to get his attention.

“Don’t go back to the dorms,” he said severely. “I got all your things. Everything is packed in the pick-up outside.”

Sebastian shook his head as he tried to understand.

“Take the north road out,” Tellemband continued, shoving a hard plastic card into Sebastian’s hand. “This is for the bank account that the order set up for the protector of the Scion, but the minute they know he’s gone they’re going to close it, so find the first ATM you can and empty it. Every cent. Do you understand?” Sebastian looked down at the card and saw a Post-It wrapped around it with four digits written in clear block script.

“I think so,” Sebastian said around a yawn. Tellemband looked at the tired young priest, reared back, and slapped him hard across the face.

“What the fuck?” Sebastian groaned, putting a hand to his wounded cheek, his eyes opened wide.

Tellemband drew his face close to Sebastian’s and spoke slowly, significantly.

“Listen to me,” Tellemband said. “There will be dire consequences in the morning when the others discover the two of you gone. You need to leave now, go as far as you can away from here…and don’t look back.”

Sebastian nodded, his green eyes shining with renewed understanding.

“Continue the mission,” Tellemband advised. “Keep him safe. Trust no one. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Sebastian said, finally awake with the gravity of the situation. “I understand.”

Sebastian shouldered the bag and lifted a sleeping Kurt into his arms, then followed Tellemband quietly out to the courtyard. He didn’t ask any questions, didn’t wonder out loud why there were no other priests roaming the rectory halls even though there was always one or two about at this hour. He figured Tellemband had done something but felt it better not to know exactly what. They padded out to the cobblestone yard and made a break for the waiting truck. Sebastian slid Kurt into the cold passenger seat and he started to whimper.

“No,” Kurt groaned, kicking out his feet but still mostly asleep. “No, I don’t want to go. Not with Alistair. Not without Bas.”

“Kurt, baby,” Sebastian hushed, running a soothing thumb over Kurt’s right cheekbone, “it’s alright. Go back to sleep. It’ll all be okay.”

Tellemband watched with a sad, fond smile as Sebastian parted Kurt’s bangs and kissed his forehead. Kurt settled back to sleep and Sebastian buckled him in, closing the truck door quietly so as not to wake him again. Sebastian quickly rounded the front of the truck to the driver’s side. Tellemband met him there and hugged him, patting him on the back and squeezing him tight. Tellemband released the boy too soon, but he knew if they didn’t go, they’d never make it off the compound before the priests on first watch regained consciousness.

He opened the truck door and Sebastian slid into the driver’s seat.

Sebastian rolled down the window and looked into the face of the man who raised him, who taught him everything he knew, who defended him and kept him safe…a man whom he would most likely never see again.

“Sebastian,” Tellemband said, his voice shaking with emotion, “don’t come back.”

Sebastian nodded. He understood why. He fired the ignition, shifted the truck into drive, and took off down the road with Kurt by his side, away from temples and ceremonies and disappointed eyes…and the only life he had ever known.


	51. Sebastian the Protector

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for Kurtbastian Week 2014 Day 3
> 
> Summary: This is a third part I wrote for my Kurtbastian Week one-shot The Last Scion, and the second part Sebastian and the Last Scion by anon request. Sebastian takes Kurt to a seedy hotel to keep him safe, and Kurt asks him about the man he slept with during the ceremony.
> 
> Rated R (For talk about sex, language, supernatural elements, and loose interpretation of religious themes)

A highway no-tell motel.

That definitely wasn’t a place for the lauded Last Scion, but Kurt (plain, regular, beautiful Kurt) had no business being there either. If things were different and Sebastian had his way, Kurt would be settled in the lap of luxury with nothing but the best of everything…the kinds of things Sebastian’s past life and his estranged father could definitely help Sebastian give to him. But Sebastian figured this run down little shack - barely four walls, a ceiling, and thankfully indoor plumbing – was the perfect place to hide out for the night. With all the money they had at their disposal and the way the less forgiving priests had never stopped seeing Sebastian as materialistic and self-serving, The Stardust 79 was definitely the last place anyone would think to look for them.

Sebastian paid for the room in cash. The doped out guy behind the desk barely acknowledged his existence, didn’t know that he was sharing his room with another person, and Sebastian was grateful for those small favors.

When they left the compound with its towering temples behind, Sebastian obediently drove the north road, hitting every gas station he could, withdrawing money and leaving a paper trail. The account was linked to a trust, which meant no daily limit as long as he withdrew only $800 from each ATM. But doing it this way would make them too obvious. Sebastian needed them to be only obvious enough. Along the way he bought a disposable cell phone at a 7-11 and through a few admittedly shady deals, he made the remainder of the money ‘disappear’ to a place where he would be able to conveniently locate it five days later. He wasn’t too concerned about any of these people turning him in. The last time Sebastian saw any of these thugs was before his father ditched him. He was eight years old, with a crew cut and a broken nose courtesy of dear old dad. It took some tracking down, but he tied up every loose end, and for all intents and purposes, Kurt and Sebastian disappeared somewhere around the Tackaloosa Truck Stop.

Then, because he had taken every word Tellemband said to heart, he trusted no one, and turned their truck due east, driving down a few streets before making a round-about to insure that anyone who had physical contact with them didn’t see anything that might be considered suspicious.

If Sebastian allowed himself to dwell more on human sins, he might actually be impressed with his own criminal prowess, but it paled in comparison to Tellemband’s ability to pick a lock or crack a safe, so Sebastian stuffed those feelings deep down and concentrated on the task at hand.

Hours after leaving the place they once called home, what they once considered a sanctuary, Kurt awoke, and even though his eyes hadn’t completely cleared from his hours of sleep and crying, he commanded Sebastian to tell him everything.

Sebastian still bowed to the Scion. It was a sin to lie to him, even if just to spare his feelings.

Sebastian took a deep breath and explained Tellemband’s late night visit, his command to get Kurt as far away from the temple as possible, to continue the mission…to never come back.

Kurt tried to stay stoic, but it was that last part, the last thing Tellemband said to Sebastian that made the tears fall anew.

Kurt and Sebastian were schooled in very different aspects of the order, but one thing was crystal clear for both of them – there were extreme consequences for defying the order’s wishes, consequences that Tellemand would suffer come morning.

Consequences that Sebastian would more than suffer if the priests ever found them.

These warnings were embedded in Kurt and Sebastian specifically from a young age, when it was obvious that their affection for each other exceeded the boundaries of mere friendship. Kurt believed it was done on purpose so that he would not fall in love with Sebastian and so Sebastian would not try and kidnap him away…the way he was doing now.

Kurt cried and cried for hours, and Sebastian let him, holding his hand across the bench seat and simply being there for him. He wouldn’t tell Kurt not to cry, or that everything would be alright. Sebastian wanted to believe it, but he couldn’t make any promises, and Kurt deserved to cry.

He deserved to cry for a lot of things.

So did Sebastian.

Sebastian drove and drove, through the night and into the day, back into night again, until the lines in the road crossed in front of his vision, and he got tired searching out every side road gas station to fill up their tank.

Kurt didn’t speak when Sebastian walked him into their detestable room. Sebastian shook out the bed sheets and inspected everything carefully for bedbugs. When Sebastian felt comfortable that the room sucked but was not infested, he lay Kurt down carefully, and then started the task of performing spells of protection, spells of confusion, prayers of cloaking, everything he could think of that would keep search parties – human and demonic – off their trail.

When he was done, he climbed up on the bed behind Kurt, but when Kurt’s body stiffened, Sebastian pulled back a little.

“Is this okay?” Sebastian asked. The question sounded awkward since he’d never had to ask it before.

Kurt nodded, and Sebastian pulled in close, the salve of Kurt’s body against his immediately setting everything right.

“Would you…could you…”

Sebastian looked down at Kurt’s face in the dark, trying to make out the expression on his face.

“Yes, Kurt?”

“Could you tell me what it was like?” Kurt asked, his voice dipping down into a register Sebastian almost didn’t hear.

Sebastian was going to ask “What was _what_ like?” to stall for time, but he wasn’t about to insult the Scion’s intelligence.

“I’ll tell you,” Sebastian said, “but does it have to be right now?”

Kurt sniffled. Sebastian felt a tear drip from Kurt’s cheek and fall onto his skin, and Sebastian knew, yes, it had to be right now.

“What do you want to know?” Sebastian asked, praying that if anyone in the heavens above still had any affection for him, even after kidnapping Kurt, that this conversation would be quick and painless.

“What was his name?” Kurt asked.

Sebastian’s own body went rigid now. He didn’t mean it to, but it was just a reaction to the thought that Kurt might think he cared so much about some random that he would hold onto something as personal as the man’s name.

“I don’t know,” Sebastian groaned.

“Did he tell it to you?”

“Maybe he did, I don’t know,” Sebastian said, trying to cool his temper. “It’s not important.”

“It _is_ important,” Kurt retorted, sounding strangely defensive.

“No, Kurt,” Sebastian said, his voice tight and strained. “It’s _not_ important.”

“He’s a person, Sebastian,” Kurt argued. “He gave you something of himself…”

“No, Kurt!” Sebastian cried, almost shoving away from the other boy. “No, Kurt, he didn’t! He wasn’t a virgin. He wasn’t in love with me. He was a whore, Kurt. _I_ gave him something. _I_ gave him something I wanted to give to you, and they paid him to take it away from me. So, no Kurt. He wasn’t a person. Not to me. He was just a means to an end.”

Kurt gasped and the indignantion in that small sound filled Sebastian with hurt and rage.

“You don’t think that maybe this was difficult for me, too?” Sebastian stumbled over words that fought one another to be heard. “I always thought they would see us together all these years, see how much I was in love with you, and…”

“Let you sleep with me?” Kurt scoffed.

“Let me pass this by,” Sebastian whimpered, trying to keep his voice steady and strong, “and when they didn’t, Kurt, it almost broke me.” Sebastian sniffled, swallowing back all the fury welling up in his throat, not wanting to lash out at the one person who deserved his anger less than anyone. “The only reason I didn’t fight was because I thought, I truly believed, they were making me go through with it _because_ of my love for you, that for certain they would make me your protector. And now to find out that wasn’t the case…”

Sebastian shook his head, shaking away dark thoughts; trying to shake away tears, too.

“It wasn’t him, Kurt,” Sebastian whispered, wrapping his arms around Kurt’s body and trying to pull him close, whining low in the back of his throat when Kurt resisted. “It was you. _Your_ hair, _your_ eyes, _your_ smile, _your_ body…it was all you, and for now, at least, if I can’t keep believing that, then I’m going to fall apart.”

Kurt felt Sebastian shiver and melted back against him, cursing himself, cursing his immaturity, after everything Sebastian had been through in the last hours just to protect him. He hated himself for his behavior.

What a Scion he was turning out to be.

All those lessons, all those ceremonies, all this pomp and circumstance, and he was really nothing more than a jealous teenager. Kurt wanted to turn in Sebastian’s arms and hold him, but he suddenly had an idea, admittedly sort of a stupid idea that might just make things monumentally worse, but he was going to be all the things Sebastian was too disciplined to be. He was going to be greedy and selfish…and human.

“Can you tell me the daydream?” Kurt asked innocently, pulling completely out of Sebastian’s arms. “This way I can pretend I was there with you?”

Sebastian swallowed. He knew what Kurt was doing.

Kurt was the Last Scion, in many ways touted as a perfect being, without earthly concerns and cares, but he was also a human teenager with normal hormonal responses.

“Kurt…” Sebastian warned, moving as far to the other end of the bed as the single mattress would allow.

“Just…don’t touch me,” Kurt said kindly, “and talk to me.”

Kurt waited in the dark, holding fast to the edge of the mattress, hoping that Sebastian would indulge him.

“Alright,” Sebastian relented, letting his eyes drift closed, trying to recapture the memory.

“You were waiting for me…on a picnic blanket beneath the willows in the courtyard where we have lunch on the warm days in the spring…”

“Mmhmm,” Kurt nodded keeping completely still.

“And we weren’t dressed in robes, or some stupid ceremonial garb, just jeans and t-shirts. We were just people…”

Of all the details in his daydream, their laid-back clothing was the part he loved the most. He knew that the world outside their gates didn’t always smile too brightly on homosexual couples, but so many days he’d rather face _that_ narrow-minded persecution than the idea that some huge, universal battle between good and evil would tear him and Kurt apart.

“And I sat beside you,” Sebastian continued, his voice hoarse and thick, “and you kissed me…”

Sebastian breathed heavily, a grin spreading on his lips. Kurt looked back over his shoulder.

“Did you kiss him?” Kurt murmured, trying not to sound accusatory.

“No,” Sebastian answered quickly, opening his eyes so Kurt could see Sebastian’s sincerity in their depths. “No…even if they let us, I wouldn’t have. _That_ I get to keep.”

Kurt smiled to himself in the dark, but Sebastian caught just a hint of the glimmer in his eyes before he looked away.

“I held your face in my hands,” Sebastian continued softly, unintentionally seducing Kurt with the smooth slide of his voice. “Tracing your cheekbones with my thumbs, staring deep into your eyes between each kiss, letting my tongue play over the seam of your mouth until you let me in…”

“Aha,” Kurt sighed, but the sound carefully camouflaged a moan, and Sebastian heard alarm bells fire off in his head. His own erection returned, that hidden moan bringing it to life. Sebastian locked his hands together behind his back in an effort not to let them wander.

“I stripped you of your clothing, one piece at a time…”

Sebastian waited, letting the image of him helping Kurt out of his clothes sink in. Sebastian saw Kurt’s fists tighten in the sheets. He wanted to shut his eyes again, but he couldn’t. He’d never seen Kurt aroused before. Sure, they’d shared a bed tons of times, and went their own separate ways silently when the need arose, but he never witnessed Kurt’s world unwind, and this, just from the sound of Sebastian’s voice.

“A-and I rolled you over on your stomach,” Sebastian panted, his entire body trembling with the strain, “and kissed you over your shoulders, over your neck, down your back, licking down your spine…”

Sebastian heard Kurt gasp, his hand breaking away from the sheets to claw lightly over his own skin, trying to follow the trail Sebastian’s tongue would have taken, switching to his sternum when his spine was too difficult to reach.

Sebastian’s breath shuddered when he thought about the next place he dreamed his mouth had kissed.

“A-and then, Kurt,” Sebastian faltered, his eyes falling closed again before the image of Kurt did him in, “a-and then I held you open and gently, very gently, I kissed…”

Sebastian felt shivering fingers press against his lips, and without a thought he pecked a kiss on them quickly.

“N-no more,” Kurt commanded. Sebastian opened his eyes, afraid he had offended Kurt, afraid that he had made Kurt feel dirty, but the smile that met him erased all his concerns. Kurt bit his lip, and in the fading candlelight Sebastian saw a tinge of pink on the apples of his high cheekbones, and a slight sheen of perspiration covering his brow. “That’s…that was…” Kurt’s eyes darted away, unable to stare too long into Sebastian’s, which looked at him in a way Kurt had never seen before. “Enough for now. That was enough for now.”

Sebastian couldn’t find any bit of his voice to answer so he nodded.

Kurt giggled at Sebastian’s silence.

“Uh…do…do you think you can hold me?” he asked sheepishly.

Sebastian took a few deep, exaggerated breaths, smirking when Kurt threw his head back and laughed.

“I think I can manage,” Sebastian assured him, dragging Kurt close into the circle of his arms, leaving him enough space between them to settle down.

“Thank you,” Kurt murmured against Sebastian’s skin. “Thank you for humoring me.”

Sebastian buried his nose in Kurt’s hair and breathed in, trying to banish all thoughts of priests and ceremonies with the scent of Kurt’s shampoo that always reminded him of warm spring breezes and that sacred weeping willow tree.


	52. Vows and Silence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the anons who seemed determined to keep this story going, here is a one-shot for the story I wrote for Kurtbastian Week 2014 The Last Scion that continues on from Kurt and Sebastian’s first night in the motel where Sebastian is hiding Kurt. Anon prompted “any possible fallout from Sebastian revealing his daydream to Kurt (wink, wink)”

The sound of rushing water broke through the dark oblivion that passed for sleep, and Sebastian did everything he could to try and push it away so he could return to that black abyss where nothing evil existed, nothing hunted them, nothing kept them apart. Sebastian reached out to draw Kurt tighter into the circle of his embrace, but once he realized he was lying in the small bed alone, he sat bolt upright; frantic, panic stricken eyes searching the darkness for Kurt.

He tried to wake up and recover his ability for rational thinking, trying to make sense of what was going on around him. He was struck again by the rushing water. The only place he was going to find rushing water in a motel room was the bathroom.

Sebastian breathed a huge sigh of relief. Kurt must be taking a shower. After all the stress and strain of the past day and a half, he most likely woke up to a nightmare and needed to relax. Sebastian listened to the sound of the water beating down on the shower walls and also Kurt’s naked body, and for the first time he noticed Kurt whimpering. Sebastian’s heart sank, thinking of Kurt – his poor, beautiful Kurt – crying beneath the hot water, probably using the spray to mask his tears. Sebastian swung his legs over the side of the bed and headed to the bathroom door, his hand poised to knock when a sudden, unexpected keen caught his attention. Sebastian held his breath and listened harder, trying to hone in on that sound if it came around again, and when it finally did, Sebastian was sure. His jaw dropped as he backed away from the door. The backs of his knees hit the mattress when he heard the muffled sound again and he stumbled backward onto the bed.

 _Oh my God!_ Sebastian thought. Kurt was masturbating!

Sebastian suspected, but Kurt kept his thoughts about things like that very private. Kurt never seemed comfortable discussing anything sexual, and as his friend, Sebastian didn’t pry. Even if Kurt hadn’t been the Scion, it would have been too tacky to come out and ask. Sebastian imagined it had to be a tricky business for the Scion. Impure thoughts were considered evil, but the priests taught them that as impure creatures themselves there was some wiggle room. But where the priests sit on the bottom of the totem pole, the Scion sat perched on top, so how much wiggle room did Kurt have? Besides, exactly what did a supposedly perfect person fantasize about when they masturbated?

_“Sebastian.”_

Sebastian’s head snapped up at the sound; a moan so low, so quiet that a single breath would have drowned it out, but Sebastian still managed to hear it, even above the pounding water.

_“Sebastian.”_

“Fuck,” Sebastian groaned softly. He laid back on his pillows and closed his eyes, fighting with the decision between trying to block Kurt out and go back to sleep, or to let the temptation in Kurt’s voice carry him along with it, if only in secret. A sudden thought of a naked Kurt standing beneath the water; steam rising up around his trim, muscular body; head thrown back, eyes closed, his hand fisting around his cock while he moaned Sebastian’s name pretty much made Sebastian’s mind up for him. He relaxed into the thin pillows and the stiff blankets as much as he could and listened to the muted sound of Kurt’s voice.

_“Sebastian.”_

Sebastian felt his body awaken, lured by that sound, his hand sneaking into his pants. Honestly, it was something he rarely did. As much as he sometimes detested being a priest, it was still his life, and masturbation didn’t seem to fit well with duty, obedience, and responsibility. Sebastian joined the order to escape the long arm of his abusive father. After exactly twelve minutes in the dorms he had planned a way to escape. A minute later, he saw Kurt for the first time…and because of Kurt, he stayed. He made it his personal mission to protect Kurt. It was a vow he intended to keep.

Sebastian’s hand moved slowly over his own cock, quickening his pace when Kurt continued to speak.

“Tell me you love me, Sebastian,” Kurt murmured.

“I love you, Kurt,” Sebastian whispered into his pillow.

“Tell me you want me.”

If five words ever existed that could tear Sebastian completely apart, Kurt found them. Sebastian clenched his teeth, growling in frustration as he hit the bed hard.

“I want you, Kurt,” Sebastian whined. “God, I want you.”

“Tell me you need me.”

Sebastian nearly choked. It was a plea, and it sounded so small and plaintive and unsure.

“Every day of my life,” Sebastian replied softly to the empty air and the closed bathroom door.

Kurt’s ramblings turned into a low, breathy pant and Sebastian could somehow feel beneath his skin and in his blood that Kurt was close. It was like a mist that surrounded him. He breathed it in through his mouth and let it fill his lungs. It expanded out through capillaries and arteries until it reached every last inch of him. Most of all, it completed him in a sensational way. It mended the rifts and filled the holes; every piece that had been torn away from him felt revitalized and renewed, and when he came over his fist, too caught up in the moment to even think about stopping, to consider the mess he’d have to explain when Kurt returned, there were so few of his actual cares left that he could almost convince himself that everything was good and normal in his world. He wanted that feeling. Even as it still lingered in the air around him he craved it. He knew he’d have to be careful not to become addicted, or it could change his relationship with Kurt forever.

The shower water stopped and reality bled in.

“Shitshitshit!” Sebastian chanted as he quickly cleaned himself up with this own shirt, shoving it hastily out of sight in the corner. He was debating changing the bed sheets when Kurt stepped out, completely dressed, skin damp and flushed from the hot water, a cloud of steam wafting around him and rolling across the graying carpet on the floor. Their eyes locked – Sebastian’s from where he stood at the foot of the bed and Kurt’s where he stopped just reaching the head of it, his face growing pinker by the second. They stared at each other with twin blank expressions that hid awkwardness and fear and embarrassment. Sebastian’s heart beat out a steady rhythm that begged Kurt, ”Please don’t ask, please don’t ask, please don’t ask, please don’t ask…”

Because whatever the Scion asked, his priest would have to answer.

It was a sin for a priest to lie to the Scion.

But Kurt wasn’t just a Scion, he was also becoming a man – a man that he had always hoped would have inherited Elizabeth Hummel’s grace, tact, and decorum as well as Burt Hummel’s wisdom and easygoing nature.

“There’s still some hot water left if you want to take a shower,” Kurt said, hanging his wet towel behind the bathroom door and flicking off the light. “Though to tell you the truth, there wasn’t really all that much to begin with.”

“N-no,” Sebastian stuttered. “No…I think I’m good.”

Kurt climbed back onto the bed and looked up at his friend.

“Are you sure?” Kurt asked, a shy but surprisingly mischievous smile on his plump, pink lips.

Unusually plump, Sebastian noticed. Almost bitten…swollen…

His jaw dropped.

“Yeah,” Sebastian confirmed, nodding a little more stringently than necessary.

Kurt chuckled once softly and slid into the bed on Sebastian’s side.

“Uh…Kurt?” Sebastian approached Kurt, finally finding the will to move from his spot. “Don’t you usually sleep on the right?”

“Yeah,” Kurt agreed. “I usually do. I just like the energy on your side of the bed right now. Is that alright with you?”

“Yeah,” Sebastian said softly, nodding, and climbing back in beside him. “Yeah, that’s fine.”

It amazed Sebastian how quickly he managed to fall back to sleep with Kurt in his arms.


	53. Company's Coming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For those of you reading the Last Scion verse, here is another chapter. Several of you asked for a little background into how Kurt and Sebastian met, how Kurt became the Scion, what the Scion is, etc. I hope this answers some of those questions :) Sort of a kid!fic, supernatural, loosely based off of religious themes. Warning for the death of a major character (not Kurt or Sebastian).

“Daddy! “Daddy!” Kurt called, racing down the staircase, proudly holding the large diamond-shaped kite in front of him. He’d been working on it alone in his room all day; painstakingly measuring the dowels for the frame and searching for the thinnest fishing wire he could find to bind them together. He spent hours tracing and cutting colored tissue paper, gluing it down and trimming the edges until the whole kite was seamless. When he finished, it looked more like a giant stained glass window than a child’s homemade kite.

Kurt bounded down the stairs two at a time in his excitement, which made the silk tail of the kite bounce behind him as if they were flying together. Kurt felt like he _was_ flying, free as a bird in the sky, touching the clouds, soaring as high as the stars, maybe even finding a way to talk to his mother again.

Kurt and his father didn’t even have time to mourn her properly after the car accident. They didn’t go to her funeral or visit her grave. Kurt remembered so clearly the look in his father’s eyes when they received the call that she was dead. It wasn’t just anger, wasn’t just sadness. It was fear. Fear so powerful that his dad packed anything they could fit into their Navigator and left Lima then and there.

Kurt swore that someday he’d go back to Lima and say good-bye to his mom, with an armful of her favorite white roses and baby’s breath, and maybe this kite so she’d know how hard he had tried to find her.

Kurt could hear his father muttering when he dropped down off the last pair of steps and headed for the kitchen. His father did that sometimes – talked to his mom as if she were there, telling her about their day and how much he missed her. But his father wasn’t alone. Another voice answered his father back, and when Kurt heard it, he froze solid where he stood outside the kitchen door.

Kurt heard a strange man’s voice; a voice he didn’t recognize, a voice he was certain he had never heard before. It wasn’t a mean or sinister voice, but something about it frightened Kurt, like as if this stranger had the power to change Kurt’s life forever. The man and his father talked together in the strained, hushed way adults do when they want to be sure that children won’t hear.

“This is a matter of life and death,” the voice whispered. “Not just for you and Kurt. Burt, the time has come. Even without the danger to his life, he’d have to come to the temple. We need to protect him. Elizabeth knew it. She had premonitions. That’s why she called us before…”

“I can protect him,” he heard his father hiss. His father’s voice sounded dark and dangerous in a way Kurt had never heard before. Even though his dad wasn’t talking expressly to him with that voice, Kurt took a defensive step back away from the door. “If he’s not safe here, we’ll leave. I’ll take him out of the state, out of the country, wherever he can be safe.”

“And where is that, Burt?” the voice retorted, volume raising slightly. “Maybe, _maybe_ you can hide him from the sects and the cults and the other orders, but what about the demons, Burt? There’s no way to hide him from the shadows. They _will_ find him. What on heaven and earth do you think you, an acolyte, can do that hundreds of trained clerics can’t? He’s not safe out here, and you’re being foolish to think…”

Kurt clenched his teeth, feeling his ire rising at the sound of someone insulting his father. His father wasn’t a foolish man. In fact, Burt Hummel was the most practical adult that Kurt had known in all his eight years on the planet, and he wouldn’t let anyone come into their house and tell him different. He left his kite on the sofa and pushed through the door, stomping into the kitchen loudly to make his presence and his anger known.

Two heads popped up and snapped in his direction, eying the boy that stormed into their private meeting with a scowl on his adorable, pale face. Burt reached out to his son, but the other man stood, and Kurt was surprised to see that he wore some kind of bright colored robes; the same kind of robe he had once seen his father and mother wearing in an old photograph that used to hang on their living room wall. The man was close to his father’s age, and had the same world-weary expression on his tired face.

“Daddy?” Kurt eyeballed the stranger suspiciously as he spoke; his blue eyes never leaving the man’s face. “Who is this?”

“Kurt, this is Tellemband,” his father said, clearing his throat to rid it of their previous conversation. “He was a friend of your mother’s and mine from a long time ago.”

The man smiled down at Kurt with an expression of wonder that Kurt didn’t quite understand. The man reached out a hand and Kurt took it politely, but the man jerked back as if electrocuted, his smile growing wider from the shock.

“He’s a powerful boy already,” Tellemband said, wringing his hands together. “Now, I must insist, Burt…”

“Say good-bye to daddy’s friend,” Burt interrupted, pulling Kurt behind the shield of his body. “We have a lot to do before nightfall.”

Tellemband sighed, shaking his head.

“Actually, I do have to go to Westerville to pick up another boy.”

Burt’s green eyes went wide, his entire face perking up with a hopeful expression.

“You mean you found another…”

“No,” Tellemband said softly. “A priest. One of the many.”

Tellemband stepped closer to Burt, resting a heavy hand on his shoulder.

“Burt,” Tellemband said, “Company’s coming. They’re coming for your son.”

Kurt saw his father’s resolve slipping at those ominous words, and Kurt clung to his dad’s hand, praying that whatever he decided to do it wouldn’t mean turning him over to this man. Kurt didn’t know how he could possibly survive without his father, especially with his mother gone. Burt squeezed his son’s hand tight.

“We’ll be fine,” Burt said, and at that moment Kurt believed his father to the end of the world and back. They would be fine. His dad would protect him like he always did. There was nothing that could touch them. Kurt nodded on his father’s behalf when the man in the robes looked down at him.

Tellemband knelt in front of Kurt. A small glimmer of gold caught his eye, and Tellemband looked around Kurt’s neck where a thick gold chain rested with a simple cross dangling below his collar bone. Tellemband reached out to it, his fingertips hovering above it without touching it.

“Your mother gave you this,” Tellemband said, recognizing the blessed charm.

Kurt nodded once in reply.

“Hold onto it,” Tellemband said with a hint of urgency. “Whatever you do, don’t take it off…don’t let it go.”

It sounded like an innocent enough piece of advice to Kurt; unnecessary though since he never took the cross off, but it seemed to anger his father.

“Go…now.” Burt said the words clipped and tight. He pulled Kurt farther behind him until the boy was almost back up against the wall. “And forget that you saw us.”

Tellemband took Kurt’s hand quickly and muttered a few, quick words that Kurt thought he recognized, though they weren’t in English. They sounded like Latin…more specifically a prayer in Latin that his mother used to recite. Kurt’s mother taught him a bunch of different prayers, and Kurt learned them diligently, but only because he loved his mother. He wasn’t sure that he believed in a God, especially now when this supposedly benevolent, loving, grandfatherly person his mother always talked about saw fit to take her away from him.

Tellemband rose to his feet before Burt could object to the prayer. With a single long glance back at Kurt where he hid behind his father’s legs, Tellemband showed himself to the door. Kurt waited until the stranger’s car started and pulled off down the road before he looked up at his father. Burt sighed and leaned against the wall. He pulled his baseball cap off his head and scrubbed a hand over his face and into his hair.

“Are we going to have to leave again, daddy?” Kurt asked, staring up at his father with sad eyes. He didn’t like leaving their home in Lima, and he had grown fond of the cozy family farmhouse where they had taken refuge over the last few weeks. He wasn’t quite ready to say good-bye again.

“I’m afraid so, kiddo,” Burt said. He looked down at his young son, his tiny body hunched over with his eyes fixed on the hardwood floor. Maybe Burt should have gone along with Tellemband’s plan. This wasn’t any kind of life for an eight-year-old, running from people who would try to kidnap him and use him…or worse. Burt bordered on the edge of a decision, but for now he needed to cheer up his son. “But, if I remember correctly, weren’t you making a kite?”

Kurt’s head perked up immediately, his cherubic face lighting up with the thought of running through the field outside with his dad, trying to get his kite in the air, hopefully succeeding in sending a message to his mom as well.

Kurt retrieved his kite where he left it on the couch and dragged his father outside, grabbing his hand and tugging him towards the door. Burt and Kurt ran all around the dry field for hours trying to get his kite aloft, but not a single breeze blew. No matter how hard they tried the kite stayed grounded. The late afternoon didn’t feel hot, but it was still and quiet, as if the whole world were holding its breath and waiting for something to happen.

After a while, Burt felt it, too, and he knew Tellemband was right. He had to get Kurt away.

Kurt fell asleep on the sofa while his father loaded up the car. Burt had become a pro at tetris-ing their belongings in the vehicle. He could have probably drawn out a map of exactly where everything fit if such a thing had been called for.

Night came early, unnaturally early, and even though Kurt fell to sleep hard and fast, he had a hard time warding off the nightmares. Several times he tried to pull himself from the oblivion he found himself trapped in, but it pressed in on him; wrapped around him like a thick, heavy blanket. No matter where he ran in his dream, he couldn’t escape it.

He felt like he was being stalked.

Kurt’s father tried to shake him awake, but for all of his struggling Kurt couldn’t force himself to open his eyes. His father’s voice wavered slightly as he tried to rouse his son, but then he finally gave up and picked Kurt’s body up off the couch.

They barely made it out the farmhouse door before the demons arrived. They grew out of the shadows, seeped in from the darkness of the moonless night outside, formed their shapeless bodies out of the dust and filth covering the floor and hanging in the air. Their evil hissing and foul stench finally woke Kurt from his sleep, but this nightmare was worse than any he had before. He could feel the vile mist wrap itself around his wrists and ankles and try to pull him from his father’s arms.

Burt muttered prayers between curses, flailing to find the right blessing, the right spell that would drive the demon forces back, or at least part a path that would lead to the car and to freedom. Quickly Burt became covered by the malicious force and he dropped Kurt to the ground, shoving him with the strength he had left out the door, but Kurt refused to leave his father, even as the malevolent presence attempted to consume him whole.

Kurt could feel the prayers his father uttered move through him. He felt his lips recite them even though these particular prayers he had no conscious memory of. He felt his body become hot; white hot. Burning from the inside out with a light brighter than any he’d ever felt or seen. It filled every inch of his body and shot out in all directions – from his eyes, from his mouth, from the follicles of his hair, from the pores on his skin. The light flowed out of him, filling the dark spaces, every corner reflecting the radiant glow. It singed the shadows, eradicated everything evil in its path, and when it was gone, it disappeared entirely; not a trace of it left behind.

The only thing Kurt could see in the doorway of the quaint little farmhouse he had hoped to call home was his father, his twisted body unmoving, unbreathing. That crushed him so completely he fell immediately unconscious, unaware of the muffled footsteps racing toward him.

The next time Kurt opened his eyelids, he saw inquisitive green eyes staring back at him.

Kurt remembered saying ‘hello’ to the owner of those eyes. That word should have been there, but the conversation wove in and out of his thoughts, as if it were coming at him in between two radio stations, with verbal static cutting through, overwhelming the words. Kurt heard a distant muttering, something he didn’t quite recall in this memory, but he knew it. Even without having to hear it clearly, he knew the words being spoken. He had recited the prayer himself, but along with it, floating beneath it, was something he heard not with this head, but with his heart.

“Kurt?”

A soft, unsure voice pierced the void.

“Kurt…wake up.”

Kurt recognized it. It reminded him of love and hope and home. He wanted so much to follow it, but he had trouble pinpointing its direction.

“Kurt, please wake up. You’re having a nightmare.”

Kurt felt something cool touch his feet, his hands, his forehead. A sweet, warm scent filled his nostrils when he breathed. Frankincense. It filled him with a tremendous calm and peace, drawing him away from his anxiety; leading him away from memories of suffering and pain.

He blinked once and saw those same eyes, green and clouded with worry, but these eyes were older and remarkably wiser. He blinked again, and Sebastian’s entire face came into view, his cheeks pink, his hair beautifully bedraggled. Sebastian hovered above Kurt, shirtless, dressed only in his boxer shorts, straddling Kurt’s legs, praying over him in much the same way Tellemband prayed over Kurt in his memory.

“That’s the fifth nightmare this week,” Sebastian pointed out when Kurt’s eyes became focused and clear.

Kurt nodded, reaching a trembling hand to touch the cross hanging from the chain around his neck.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” Kurt said with a sad shake of his head. “Not really. I…I saw my father die again. And I met you. Do you remember that?”

Sebastian rolled his eyes.

“I might have a vague recollection of that night.”

Kurt smiled weakly. Sebastian felt his heart jump at that tremulous little twist of Kurt’s lips, that in Kurt’s pain Sebastian could still make him smile.

“Do you know what the dream means?” Sebastian asked, holding Kurt’s quivering hands in his own.

Kurt felt like that frightened boy again when he looked into Sebastian’s eyes. He stuttered over the first consonant, trying to get the sound past his parched throat.

“C-company’s coming.”

Sebastian’s eyes swept across the darkened hotel room, at the front door and the broomstick standing straight and stolid beside it, at the pendulum on the bedside table that hung in place and didn’t sway; all of these indicating the exact opposite of what Kurt said, but Sebastian trusted Kurt more than all the totems and symbols in the world.

“Alright,” Sebastian said firmly. “We’ll leave. Tonight.”

Sebastian wrapped his arms around Kurt and held him, trying to calm the tremors that shook his body. Sebastian shut his eyes, murmuring the first prayers of calming he ever learned in the hopes they would help soothe Kurt’s troubled soul. Sebastian closed his eyes and concentrated on the words of the simple prayer, but with the scent of Frankincense in the air and Kurt’s body in his arms, his mind started to drift.

***

Sebastian paced the floor of the priest’s tiny quarters, like a large cat prowling behind the bars of a too small cage. He had managed to escape the dormitory twice in the first twelve minutes since the older priest dropped him off and left. It wasn’t that he didn’t appreciate what the priest had done for him. After all, his dad would have done some permanent damage for sure if he had managed to hit him across the face one more time with that wine bottle. As it was, Sebastian’s nose throbbed from what the priest had diagnosed as a ‘wicked break’. But Sebastian had been making moves to start his own money laundering scheme, and he couldn’t do that from behind these walls.

Sebastian had underestimated the priests and their ability to keep him on lock-down. He thought for sure he could slip right by them unseen, since they all seemed completely preoccupied with the arrival of some new, important visitor; someone they had been waiting for forever by the sounds of things. After his second attempt to break free, an annoyed, squat looking man locked him in the priest’s cell till his return. The term ‘cell’ was apparently what they called their bedrooms, but it was a perfect word for it. The room had enough space for a bed and a dresser. There were no posters or pictures on the walls except for a single cross, but most distressing was the lack of windows.

Sebastian decided he would wait for someone to open the door and make a break for it. It wasn’t the most elegant plan, but it was the only one he had.

The muted buzz of conversation outside morphed into a distinct pair of voices coming his way, and Sebastian poised himself for a breakout.

“So that’s really him?” a flat, unimpressed voice asked. “I thought he might be more, I don’t know…more…”

Sebastian recognized that voice as belonging to the man that locked him in here. He would have to consider how much ground he might lose if he stopped long enough to kick him hard in the shin.

“Bite your tongue, Grumbald,” another voice said. “He may be unconscious, but you are still speaking in the presence of the chosen. Whatever your perceptions of what he should be are flaws of yours, not his.”

Sebastian knew this priest, too. He remembered that voice arguing with his father a few short hours ago.

“My apologies,” Grumbald offered in an extremely unconvincing way. “I didn’t mean any offense. But while we’re on the subject of flawed boys, about this new acolyte you found today. You know, not every broken stray you bring in here can become a priest, Tellemband, and I won’t have him. I have my own acolyte. Alistair. He comes from an affluent family. I have high hopes for him, and besides, his parents will be generous to the order.”

“Money doesn’t equal devotion, Grumbald,” Tellemband scolded. “More than likely they’re trying to buy their way to heaven. How come you never see this?”

Grumbald grunted, but it didn’t seem to phase Tellemband in the slightest.

“I will be the boy’s mentor,” Tellemband said, the tone in his voice leaving no room for argument.

That didn’t mean Grumbald wouldn’t try.

“You…you can’t be a mentor and take on the responsibility of caring for the chosen!” he groused indignantly.

The door to the cell swung open, and Sebastian took a step, preparing to bolt, but all thoughts of running left Sebastian at once when he saw the frail boy draped like a ragdoll in the priest’s arms.

“Try and stop me,” Tellemband challenged.

Grumbald swallowed, too apprehensive to continue arguing. His eyes fell past Tellemband and saw Sebastian smirking back at him. He sneered at the boy, but Tellemband pushed into the room, shutting the door behind him.

“So, I heard you tried to run away again,” Tellemband said, addressing Sebastian without looking at him.

“You can’t keep me here. You said so yourself.”

Sebastian watched the man lie the unconscious boy out on his bed.

“That’s right. Until you take your vows, you are free to leave whenever you wish and never return, but I don’t think that’s wise.”

Sebastian looked over the boy’s sleeping face. He had a few marks and scratches; nothing close to what Sebastian had with his now crooked nose and purple eye, but otherwise the sleeping boy’s face was perfect; his skin flawless, and for some reason it angered Sebastian that someone would dare lay a hand on him.

“What happened to him?” Sebastian asked, curbing his temper. “Did his father beat him up?”

“No.” Tellemband leaned over the boy and brushed a few stray hairs from his closed eyes. “His father died trying to save him. He was a good man. When he wakes up, I’ll have to tell him that his father’s gone, and he’ll be very upset. He doesn’t have any other family left in the world.”

Sebastian sighed, sitting carefully on the bed beside the boy so as not to wake him.

“Who is he?”

Tellemband examined Sebastian critically, raising an eyebrow at his curiosity.

“You’ve been wandering around unattended. You’ve probably heard rumors of a special boy with peculiar powers.”

Tellemband waited for an answer, and Sebastian nodded.

“Well, this is him. His name is Kurt. We call him the Scion.”

Sebastian scrunched his nose, and then winced at the sharp stab of pain.

“What is that?” Sebastian asked. “The Scion?”

“Well, he’s the last of a very important blood line.” Sebastian looked confused at the priest’s explanation. “He is a weapon, of sorts,” Tellemband clarified, “for an epic battle between good and evil.”

Sebastian scoffed and tilted his head, not sure whether to be annoyed that the old man was so blatantly lying to him or impressed by the creative story.

“You’re shitting me,” Sebastian drawled.

“Language,” Tellemband scolded, and Sebastian rolled his eyes. “No, I’m not. Actually, he’s the last Scion.”

“So, why is he here?” Sebastian asked, deciding to humor the obviously insane man.

“The priests of this order are sworn to protect him.”

Sebastian’s eyes trailed back to the boy on the bed.

“So, if I stay, I have to protect him?”

Tellemband untied Kurt’s shoes and slipped them off his feet while he watched Sebastian stare down at Kurt, biting his lip between his teeth.

“That’s part of the job description, yes.” Tellemband covered Kurt in a blanket. “But it’s not a job we take lightly.”

Tellemband saw the boy’s mind working as he continued to pinch his lip between his teeth, eyes glued to Kurt’s sleeping face. He lingered right outside the boy’s view. Sebastian turned back toward Tellemband with a determined but repentant expression.

“I’m sorry I ran away,” Sebastian said. “I promise I won’t do it again. I want to stay. I want to become a priest and protect Kurt.”

Tellemband crossed his arms over his chest and considered the boy’s sudden apology.

“So, are you staying because you want to devote your life to the priesthood, or because you want to protect Kurt?” Tellemband asked.

Sebastian crossed his arms over his chest in a similar gesture.

“Does it matter?” he bit out.

Tellemband considered the boy’s question.

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “No, it doesn’t.” Tellemband gathered up a few books from his dresser. “I must go confer with the other priests. Would you mind staying with Kurt? In case he wakes up?”

“I’ll stay,” Sebastian said eagerly.

“You won’t leave?” Tellemband asked sternly.

Sebastian threw his hands up in frustration at what he felt was an asinine question.

“Look, do you want me to say those stupid frickin’ vows now?”

Tellemband fought not to smile at the young boy’s impetuousness.

“That won’t be necessary if you give me your word that you won’t leave.”

Sebastian took a deep, cleansing breath, and fixed the priest with the most sincere look he could conjure.

“I won’t leave. I promise I won’t leave.”

Tellemband nodded, feeling confident that Sebastian would stay true to his word, and left the cell, not bothering to lock the door behind him.

The loud click of the door shutting startled Kurt. He blinked and his eyes fluttered open, darting around the dimly lit room, looking for danger, but instead finding another boy about his own age sitting beside him on a hard, narrow bed.

“Hello,” Kurt choked out cautiously, licking dry lips.

“Hello,” Sebastian said quietly.

Kurt coughed a few times and struggled to prop himself up on his elbows to get a better look around.

“Where am I?”

“You’re at a temple,” Sebastian said, trying to sound knowledgeable, “with priests.”

Kurt furrowed his brow as he appraised the boy with the blackened eye and the bruised nose.

“Why are you here?” Kurt cocked his head.

Sebastian pulled himself up to his full height.

“I’m here to protect you,” he said with all the authority he could muster.

Kurt pulled a face and almost laughed. Sebastian held his breath, hoping for the sound of Kurt’s laughter.

“Are you a priest?”

“Sort of. I will be soon.”

Kurt nodded, sitting further upright and crossing his legs beneath the blanket.

“What happened to your nose?” Kurt asked, pointing a finger at Sebastian’s face.

“Oh…” Sebastian scooted back a bit, ashamed to admit to Kurt that his father had beaten him, especially in the face of the great sacrifice Kurt’s father made. “I…broke it.”

Kurt waved Sebastian over with his hand, and Sebastian crawled over the bed to join him, realizing there was nothing Kurt could ask of him that he wouldn’t do. For a boy who had been dead set on starting his own criminal empire and being his own boss, it was an unusual feeling bowing to someone else.

“Here. It doesn’t always work, but I’ll try to fix it.”

“Wh-what?” Sebastian asked, but before he could move away, Kurt placed his hand gently on the bridge of Sebastian’s nose. He closed his eyes and whispered a few words. Sebastian felt a pinch in the bridge of his nose. He heard Kurt whimper and a purple bruise formed on Kurt’s face, right around his eye. His nose swelled as if he had been punched but then the swelling disappeared, the black and blue bruise dissolving into the skin around it along with the few scratches and scrapes Kurt had to begin with. When Kurt opened his eyes, his alabaster skin was clear. Sebastian put a hand up to his own nose and tweaked it, amazed when it didn’t send a spray of sharp pain throughout his face.

“How did you do that?” Sebastian muttered in awe, still twisting his healed nose.

“I don’t know for sure. I think I absorb other people’s hurt, and then it goes away,” Kurt explained. “That’s not all I can do, but the other stuff attracts too much attention.”

“So you take the pain, and then your body heals you?” Sebastian reworded, trying to make sense of what happened to his broken nose.

“Yeah.” Kurt shrugged. “I guess that’s how it works.”

“Well, don’t ever do that again!” Sebastian said, trying to rid himself of the memory of Kurt sporting his black eye and broken nose. “Alright? Promise me?“

Kurt nodded, blushing red with a small smile on his face.

“I promise.”

Kurt ducked his head and looked around again, his smile fading.

“My dad’s dead…isn’t he,” Kurt whispered, toying with the edge of the blanket, not really asking but hoping it wasn’t true.

“I…I don’t think I…”

“What’s your name?” Kurt asked abruptly.

Sebastian looked at Kurt with wide eyes. He felt an odd compulsion to answer Kurt’s question.

“Sebastian,” he said.

“Sebastian,” Kurt repeated, and the sound of Kurt saying his name sent a thrill down Sebastian’s spine. “Sebastian, protecting me doesn’t mean keeping me from the truth. So, please…”

Sebastian sat up straight again.

“Yes,” he said plainly. “Yes, your dad is dead. He died protecting you.”

Kurt’s face went pale and he gasped. He wanted to know. He needed to know, but he wasn’t quite prepared to hear it so matter-of-factly.

Kurt stared at Sebastian for a second longer before his whole body crumbled. Sebastian rushed forward and caught him in his arms, holding his thin body as Kurt cried into the blanket.

“It’s okay, Kurt,” Sebastian murmured into Kurt’s hair. “It’ll be okay. I’m here, and I’m not going to leave you, okay?”

“Okay,” Kurt sniffled, but he cried again, and Sebastian held him tighter.

Outside the cell door, Tellemband held his books to his chest, finally walking away to the great hall, knowing that the Scion, for the moment, was in good hands.

***

Sebastian held Kurt as tight now as he did then, hushing him gently, running oil soaked fingers through his hair to keep him cool and calm. They held on to each other, tucked into their own sphere of sanctity and silence…until that silence broke with the crack of the broom falling to the floor.

Sebastian dropped his head to Kurt’s shoulder and breathed out, his entire body shuddering.

“Yup,” Sebastian said. “It’s time for us to go.”

 


	54. Love and Punishment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For those of you following the Scion verse, here is an anon prompt - a one-shot that shows more of the way Sebastian suffers in his duty to protect Kurt, and that Kurt understands because he wants Sebastian, too.
> 
> Well, someone has a thing for unrequited love.
> 
> Warnings for nudity, loose interpretation of religious themes, talk of demons. AU with supernatural elements.

Kurt snickered, smothering the sound by shoving his face into his pillow.

Then he giggled, muffled by the polyester fiber-fill, but loud enough to be noticed.

He crossed his legs at the ankles and squeezed tight, trying desperately to stay still, but it was torture. Simply torture.

Some of it he could ignore. Parts of it even felt good. Too good. He thanked God that he was laying on his stomach or else it would be embarrassingly obvious just how good it felt. But the lower Sebastian got on his back, the closer to his spine and his hips, the more ticklish it became.

Sebastian painted a swirl that dipped over Kurt’s hip bone and that did it. Kurt scooted out of reach, destroying an entire row of runes.

“Kurt,” Sebastian whined, reaching for the already pitch black washcloth by his knee. “I need you to lie still, or I’m going to have to do the whole thing over again.

Kurt blushed. That actually didn’t sound like a bad thing.

“I’m sorry,” Kurt said, repositioning himself on the bed, curling his arms beneath his pillow and hugging it tight. “I’m just really ticklish right there.”

Sebastian knew. He knew all of Kurt’s ticklish spots. He knew the ones that made him hum from pleasure, and the ones that made him giddy, and the ones that seemed to relax him the most. For days since they drove closer and closer to the coast, Sebastian had felt the presence of a new threat following them; a threat that could be evaded by cloaking the Scion in a spell written in runes – runes that Sebastian spent every night painstakingly painting onto Kurt’s body with specially prepared plant dyes.

It took at least three hours to complete, and was the epitome of a labor of love; but it also felt like a punishment.

Kurt.

The Scion.

The Chosen One.

But most of all, his Kurt. His gorgeous Kurt, spread out naked on the bed they shared.

They traveled like boyfriends.

They lived like lovers.

Sebastian would give his life for Kurt, and not just because he made vows to do so; but Sebastian would never, ever be able to touch him. Not the way he wanted to. Not the way he fantasized about.

Sebastian sighed, smiling at the flush of red that covered Kurt’s entire pale body.

Seeing that blush on Kurt’s skin filled Sebastian with hope. Without a single word spoken between them, that rise of color made Sebastian believe that inside this boy, this savior, whose destiny required him to remain pure, was the soul of man who wanted him – heart and soul and flesh and blood wanted him.

Sebastian looked down the length of Kurt’s body – his strong back, his muscular legs, his perfect ass…

Sebastian ran his tongue over dry lips.

Kurt peeked over his shoulder, suddenly shy as his gaze locked with Sebastian’s intense green eyes staring down at him.

“Are you going to finish?” Kurt asked, his voice soft, struggling to hide his own need for the shirtless boy hovering over him.

It took a moment for Sebastian to realize that Kurt had spoken to him.

“Y-yes,” Sebastian stammered, returning back to his pot of dye and his brush. “Yes, of course, Scion.”

Kurt frowned. He didn’t like Sebastian calling him Scion, but Kurt understood why.

He did it when he needed to be grounded. He did it when he needed to remind himself of his duty above all – above himself, above his personal feelings…

…above love.

Sebastian finished down Kurt’s back in silence, his hand shaking slightly as he painted runes over Kurt’s ass and down the backs of his legs; Kurt biting back a moan at the delicious sensation it created, trying not to make this more difficult on Sebastian than it needed to be – especially in light of what was coming next.

Sebastian drew the last rune, the one that locked the spell, on the soles of Kurt’s feet. He sat back on his calves and looked down at his work, allowing it a moment to dry. He couldn’t see the rise and fall of Kurt’s back any more and Sebastian knew that he held his breath.

Sebastian knew because he held his breath, too.

Sebastian swallowed hard to give himself courage.

“Turn over, Scion?”

Kurt lifted himself up onto his hands and knees, taking longer than necessary to flip onto his back to give himself as much time as possible to stop the rapid racing of his heart.

Sebastian kept his eyes focused on his knees out of respect, his fingernails digging crescent moons into the skin of his thighs as he waited for Kurt to settle down on the bed.

Sebastian’s eyes flicked to Kurt’s face as Kurt looked up at Sebastian, and their gazes met, innocence and heat colliding in their combined stares.

Kurt was the first to roll his eyes and laugh, trying to ease the awkwardness.

“You know this is ridiculous,” Kurt said, giggling again as Sebastian began a pattern over his collar bone. The spell written on his back didn’t continue to his front. Instead, Sebastian drew the secret symbols of the angels, covering every inch of Kurt’s skin, saving the symbols of the archangels to protect his core organs and his heart. He also decorated Kurt’s face with these signs, but he saved that for last, since he felt it was a sin to cover Kurt’s beautiful face. Sebastian knew these symbols by heart, and didn’t need to concentrate as hard to recreate them, so Kurt would talk to him and tell him stories and jokes, trying to lift the veil of tension that surrounded them during these sessions.

“What’s ridiculous about it?” Sebastian asked, curling a symbol around Kurt’s pec, avoiding the sensitive skin surrounding his nipple. “It’s important to keep you safe.”

“Well, I should get the chance to do it to you.”

Sebastian cursed himself quietly when his already suffering cock took interest, and he allowed himself to slip and imagine Kurt straddling his naked body, painting symbols of protection on his chest.

“But, the demons aren’t looking for me,” Sebastian explained condescendingly.

“They’d kill you if they found you anyway,” Kurt said sadly. “It wouldn’t matter.”

Sebastian’s hand stuttered and he paused with his brush poised above Kurt’s heart.

“You look like me,” Kurt continued, his voice thick with remorse, “we spend all of our time together so you carry my scent…”

Sebastian shifted over Kurt’s body, letting the brush fall again and continue its work.

“That makes me the perfect decoy.” Sebastian plastered a smile on his face that he hoped would fool Kurt into thinking this was all a part of some masterfully calculated plan.

“You’re not a decoy,” Kurt said quietly but with a force of emotion so great it almost shattered Sebastian’s resolve to pieces.

It would be so easy to take Kurt, to make love to him, to end this for Kurt right now. Then they could be together.

Sebastian wasn’t a sympathetic person; he never was. Responsibility, duty, loyalty – to what? The priesthood? The human race? That kind of devotion didn’t exist in him for anyone except Kurt. It was for Kurt. It had always been all for him.

Sebastian made a shitty priest, but he’d make one hell of a husband.

Let the priests find a new Scion.

Who cared if it took another thousand years?

Who cared if there wasn’t another Scion left?

Sebastian and Kurt could stand hand in hand and watch the end of the world together.

Then Kurt’s soul would ascend to the heavens and Sebastian would burn in hell for all eternity because he had soiled the chosen champion and destroyed the only chance of salvation for the world.

Sebastian glanced into Kurt’s face and saw his intelligent, perceptive blue eyes watching him. Sebastian was sure that Kurt had gained the ability to read minds, or at least emotions, somewhere along the way. Not that he would need that ability around Sebastian.

Sebastian was an open book; always had been where Kurt was concerned.

Sebastian smiled again, and this time it was softer, more genuine.

“If you want to paint the runes on me, you can, Scion,” Sebastian said. “I’ll teach you.”

Kurt nodded and closed his eyes, tipping his head up and away while Sebastian quickly painted a long, swirling symbol down the length of Kurt’s cock. Sebastian knew this one bothered Kurt the most, so he learned to finish it in seconds.

“I’d like that,” Kurt said, releasing a shuddering breath through his lips when Sebastian was done. “But I’ll put the runes on your chest, and the angelic signs on your back.”

Sebastian squinted at Kurt in confusion, but Kurt beamed up at him with unrestrained joy over his brilliant idea.

“Why?” Sebastian asked, carefully moving down to Kurt’s knees.

“This way when we lie down in bed together and you wrap your arms around me the demons won’t know where you end and I begin. Then I can keep you safe.”

Sebastian bit his tongue hard to keep the tears in his eyes from falling onto Kurt’s skin and ruining his work.

He didn’t need to soil Kurt in order to be condemned to hell.

He was already there.


	55. The Power of Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For those of you following the Scion verse, anon prompted ‘a little more about Kurt’s powers’. So here is Sebastian training Kurt to use his powers to protect himself from danger. (Warning for mention of destroying an already dead pig so, blood, organs, a few gross descriptions. Also loose interpretation of religious themes.)

Kurt cleared his mind and concentrated on the body laid out before him a short distance away – dead, cold, and an unsettling shade of bubblegum pink. He focused on the inner cavity of the animal, pictured an empty space in its ribcage somewhere in the neighborhood of its lung and its heart. He tried to fill it with his energy, tried to ignite it with his fire…

…tried to combust it from the inside.

With his fingers pressed to his temples, he narrowed his eyelids and peered at the dead animal, expecting any minute that it would do something spectacular – explode, implode, maybe get up and tap dance. Either way, the only thing he truly succeeded in doing was giving himself a phenomenal headache.

Kurt dropped his hands to his sides and his shoulders slumped in defeat.

“I…I can’t do it,” Kurt muttered. “I can’t destroy it.”

“What’s wrong, Scion?” Sebastian asked.

Kurt frowned.

 _‘For one thing I wish you’d stop calling me that!’_ he screamed in his head. He couldn’t really be angry with Sebastian. They had to distance themselves during Kurt’s training. He needed to limit any sort of distractions. Kurt knew that. The logical side of his brain accepted it.

The rest of him, however, wanted to blow this all off and sit on the bed of their hotel room, wrapped in Sebastian’s arms, and flip through the pages of the latest _Vogue_. Instead of taking out his frustration on his young protector, he took a deep breath in, closed his eyes, and let it out slowly through pursed lips.

“I can’t kill that poor little piggy,” Kurt said, opening his eyes and motioning to the carcass of the porcine lying about twenty feet away from them. Sebastian bought the animal from a butcher in the town over from where they were staying and on the way back he found an abandoned supermarket parking lot in the middle of scenic nowhere for them to practice in, miles away from prying eyes and far enough from the highway to insure their anonymity.

“First of all, you’re not killing anything. It’s already dead,” Sebastian chuckled sarcastically. “Second of all, it’s not a _little_ piggy. That’s a full grown hog. It weighs 250 pounds at the least. You saw us try to get that thing in the truck.”

Kurt wanted to chuckle at the memory of Sebastian and an elderly butcher struggling beneath the weight of that huge pig, but one looked at the vulgar thing, decaying in the afternoon sun, slack jawed, sunken eyes staring, empty, vacant, made him want to vomit. His clammy hands shook, and he prayed to God that Sebastian didn’t notice.

“Explain to me why you’re teaching me to set pigs on fire with my mind again?” Kurt asked, stalling his lesson for as long as possible even though the sun burned hotter every second and flies had started to gather in droves. Something about trying to tap into his powers disturbed him. These powers he had, wherever they hid in his soul, felt like a living, sentient being that didn’t belong inside him. They stripped him bare till he was cold and hollow, and when they filled him back up it was with something sinister and dangerous. The few times it had happened, Kurt didn’t consciously call upon them. His body seemed to sense the danger around him and protect itself. It fractured him from his physical body; his spirit left and another consciousness took over. He didn’t like the feeling. He didn’t want to lose himself to it and not be able to find his way back.

“Look,” Sebastian said, standing behind Kurt and putting comforting hands on his shoulders, “you need to learn how to protect yourself. You have to assume that your life is always in danger, alright?”

“So, you think I need to protect myself from an army of pigs?” Kurt asked, turning to look at Sebastian over his shoulder and arching an eyebrow in his direction.

“No,” Sebastian laughed, but not sarcastically this time, “but pigs are physically similar to humans. They have a similar mass and muscle to fat ratio, a similar flesh density, and we decay at roughly the same speed.”

Kurt’s eyes went wide and Sebastian blushed.

“I’m not going to even begin to ask how you know all of that,” Kurt teased.

“Shut up,” Sebastian said, turning Kurt back toward his target, “I watch a lot of late night crime dramas. Besides, don’t hate on pigs. They can be mean motherfuckers.”

Kurt gasped quietly at Sebastian’s language. He never heard any of the priests in the temple curse, and Sebastian always had a mouth on him, but away from the order and the rules that constantly burdened them day after day, Sebastian seemed to curse more.

Kurt swallowed hard thinking about it.

Honestly, it kind of turned him on, but that attraction was a feeling he couldn’t afford to have, and it was definitely not something he should be thinking on when he was attempting to use his divine grace to light a pig on fire.

“B-but that’s just humans…and humanlike creatures,” Kurt pointed out. “What about demons?”

“Sorry, but Gil Grissom didn’t quite clue me in as to what animal best represents a demon, so we’re going to have to cross that bridge a little later.”

Sebastian smiled smugly but Kurt’s blank expression killed that smile pretty quick.

“Moving on…okay,” Sebastian said, running his hands down Kurt’s arms in an attempt to get him to relax. “Let’s try this again. Now, you need to find your center.”

Kurt sighed.

“You keep saying that,” he complained, “but I don’t know what my center is!”

“That’s alright,” Sebastian encouraged. “It’s different for every Scion. Pick the emotion in you that’s the strongest.”

“But how do I do that?” Kurt groaned, throwing his hands up in the air. He felt like he was running around in circles, trying his hardest and getting nowhere fast.

“Calm down, first of all…” Sebastian pressed his chest against Kurt’s back so Kurt could feel the rhythm of his breathing. “Breathe in…and out…and in…and out…”

Kurt concentrated on the movement of Sebastian’s body behind him, following the ebb and flow of Sebastian’s breath against his neck. His entire body responded to Sebastian, every cell seeking him out, letting Sebastian lead him from his distress and anxiety into a place of soothing calm.

“Now close your eyes,” Sebastian whispered, “and try to find a thought, a memory, anything that evokes a strong feeling. Some Scion’s tried to be warriors and thrived on a thirst for vengeance, some tapped into the deep despair of everything they lost, but I don’t think either of those emotions are in you.”

Kurt tried to conjure the most powerful memory he could.

He started with memories of his mother – baking in the kitchen on Sunday mornings, having tea parties in the front yard, playing dress up with her favorite blue sundress and a pair of sensible shoes. He thought of the day she died, the way his father’s face crumbled when he got the call, and how he packed up everything they owned and left without even saying goodbye.

“That’s it,” he heard Sebastian’s excited voice clearly against his ear, his warm breath tickling Kurt’s skin, making him feel alive. “Whatever you’re doing, keep it up.”

From somewhere in the quiet distance he heard a vague sizzling sound, and when the wind shifted he smelled the pungent odor of burning pork.

Kurt delved deep, opening doors in his memory that he had tried to keep locked – long afternoons with his father fixing cars, eating cucumber sandwiches on the front lawn when Burt Hummel tried to make up for the loss of Kurt’s mother, that fateful day when the demons invaded their tiny farmhouse and took his dad away from him.

Tears poured down Kurt’s cheeks as the memory of that night flooded his mind. Shadowy creatures dragged his father away and somehow Kurt’s divine light managed to decimate them. Kurt’s chest tightened, his breathing stopped, and the effect was instantaneous. The skin of the dead animal lit into flames, crackling with the heat, popping and sizzling as it shriveled up and peeled away.

“Yes!” Sebastian crowed. “Yes! You did it!”

Kurt felt Sebastian’s lips touch his cheek; a gentle, tender press, nothing more.

“You did it, Kurt,” Sebastian whispered into Kurt’s ear, and all of a sudden, everything changed. The images in his mind shifted to thoughts of Sebastian.

_“I’m here to protect you.”_

_“It’s okay, Kurt. It’ll be okay. I’m here, and I’m not going to leave you, okay?”_

_“I could just call you gorgeous. I think it suits you better.”_

_“It’ll be you, Kurt. It doesn’t matter who I’m with. It will always be you.”_

_“…I rolled you over on your stomach, and kissed you over your shoulders…”_

_“It’s important to keep you safe.”_

Suddenly, Kurt wasn’t controlling the fire that made the pig’s flesh burn.

He _was_ the fire.

His eyes snapped open, everything from the whites to the pupils filled with a pure, blue flame. It encased his body, made his alabaster skin glow. He barely focused on the pig, his mind simply identifying its location and the grotesquely burnt thing exploded from within, pieces of flesh and charred organs shooting out in all directions, missing Kurt and Sebastian but drenching everything else around it in putrid blood.

Filled from head to toe with this extreme power Kurt knew he could pinpoint anyone, anywhere in the world…and eliminate them. Kurt’s conscious fought to take over and push the blue flame away. As quickly as the power came, it dissolved away, leaving Kurt drained. He swayed on his feet, his knees buckling slightly. Sebastian grabbed him from behind and spun him around; when he did Kurt could clearly see the remains of the creature he had destroyed, the black asphalt parking lot painted red with its blood.

“This is great, Kurt!” Sebastian cheered. “This is amazing!”

It took several long moments for Sebastian to finally realize that Kurt wasn’t celebrating with him. He set Kurt down on his feet and turned the young savior to face him. His heart melted when he saw the fresh tears in Kurt’s eyes.

“Kurt,” Sebastian said softly, “why are you so upset? You did it! You learned the secret to tapping into your powers. You can protect yourself.”

“No, Sebastian,” Kurt said through his heartbreak, “I learned to destroy.” Kurt sniffled, dissolving into his own sorrow, falling into Sebastian’s arms, and in his head he cried, ‘ _I learned to channel my love for you into a power that can destroy.’_

 


	56. The Beast That Lies Within

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Next in the Scion verse. This comes right after 'The Power of Love' where Sebastian is trying to help Kurt deal with his new found connection to his power. Warning for mention of blood (not injuries that bleed, just the presence of blood), minor burns, loose interpretation of religious themes, and sexual thoughts.

Sebastian watched Kurt as he pretended to sleep, but he wasn’t fooled. He knew Kurt better than that. He knew all the turns and corners in the labyrinth of Kurt’s compassionate heart, his exquisite mind that saw flowers where most people saw desolation and hate, his respect for duty and his unending loyalty – his desire to be a man the way his father was a man, through hard work and dedication to those things that were important not just to himself but to others, too. Kurt was growing into that man more and more every day, and not by baby steps, either; by tremendous leaps and bounds.

Which was why Kurt’s behavior confused Sebastian, the fact that Kurt lay so still, so far away from him, barely touching, shrugging off any attempt by Sebastian to hold him. It had been days since their training session; days since Kurt had gained the ability to call upon his powers of protection; powers that Sebastian knew Kurt would rely on one day to save the world. Kurt needed to develop them, strengthen them, refine them, but for now all Kurt wanted to do was curl in on himself and lock himself away. After Kurt had started crying in the parking lot that day, he didn’t stop for hours, and when he didn’t seem to have any tears left he shut down completely.

This more than anything frightened Sebastian.

He had never seen Kurt brought to his knees by the weight of his responsibilities.

Even on those days when Tellemband would skirt around the issue of what Kurt’s life would be like after the supposed War to Save Humanity was over and the battle won (won, of course, because there was no other option), silently but not definitively implying that Kurt might not _have_ a future, Kurt never bent to the pressure or the inevitable.

So why this? Why now?

What changed?

Whatever it was, Kurt wouldn’t tell him.

***

Kurt didn’t sleep for days, not really, and exhaustion scraped him thin, physically and emotionally. Determined that Kurt needed to build up the power within him, Sebastian started Kurt on a rigorous training regimen. Kurt didn’t want the power to become stronger, but he couldn’t deny Sebastian. Kurt obeyed quietly, gritting his teeth and biting his tongue to keep from screaming every time he used his power, or more to the point, let the power use him.

But training till his heart shattered into a million irreparable pieces wasn’t the hardest thing he had done since he had his terrible breakthrough. The most painful, gut-wrenching thing he had done was to shut Sebastian out. _Assume your life is always in danger_ …that’s what Sebastian had told him. Well, now Sebastian’s life was the one in danger, except this time it was in danger from Kurt; Kurt and this Godforsaken power that had latched onto him and wouldn’t leave him alone. Now that he had tapped into it, called for it by name and allowed it to do its bidding through him, a tiny pool of it lurked inside him, reluctant to give up its hold on his soul. It had found a place to take root, and those roots grew fast and deep. He had become the vessel the priests taught him about in their many long and monotonous lessons. Kurt knew this power had no intention of letting him go.

Sebastian tossed Kurt headlong into training, trying to improve Kurt’s skills, focusing on strength over all, and Kurt was succeeding. It had gotten so that he could pretty much annihilate anything with just a thought, and that scared Kurt. He felt the power taking over, filling every cell in his blood, every fiber of his muscles, every fold in his brain. He had tried to hold the power back by reverting to thoughts of his parents, the happy and the bittersweet, in hopes of toning down the unrelenting force within him, but that no longer worked. It knew where his true strength lie hidden, and more and more it fed on it. His thoughts of Sebastian were the only fuel this beast would accept. After he had used every memory he had of Sebastian, from the first moment they met, every time they’d fallen asleep in each other’s arms, and every second in between, he started tapping into his fantasies, fantasies of sweet kisses they had yet to share, light touches, softly spoken words.

By the time he had raped every beautiful, intimate thought he had ever had of them together to feed this power, Kurt felt completely and thoroughly violated. But that wasn’t enough. The power needed to be fed, even when he wasn’t using it. He dreamt of Sebastian more and more – vivid dreams of them together; holding each other, lips pressed against skin, mouths exploring…

Some nights he woke up sweating, shuddering, cumming, his skin glowing, radiant blue heat filling the room, washing everything with its light.

It frightened him to think what might happen if the power got away from him.

What if he hurt Sebastian in his sleep, completely unaware of what he was doing?

What if he killed Sebastian?

So Kurt stayed awake all through the night, counting off the hours as they ticked slowly by, and much to his dismay he knew that Sebastian stayed awake with him.

Eventually lack of sleep wore away at them both, stealing their patience, their humor, their sanity, until the demon of their conjoined stubbornness almost did them in.

It was a month into training, after the hundredth carcass had been destroyed, that Kurt finally snapped.

“I…I can’t do this anymore,” he whimpered, his whole body shaking, awash with anger, confusion, and shame. He turned away from the carnage and stormed away, slipping in the oily red wetness covering the once black asphalt, his legs carrying him weakly back to the truck.

Sebastian’s eyes followed him, befuddled by his reaction when he was doing so well. A long line of blood dripping down Kurt’s left elbow caught Sebastian’s attention and he raced after Kurt, almost skidding on a pool of blood himself.

“Kurt! Kurt!” Sebastian called after him. “You’re cut! You’re bleeding!”

“No, I’m not,” Kurt threw over his shoulder with obvious aggravation. “It’s pig’s blood! Everything’s covered in pig’s blood! I feel like Carrie!”

“Kurt!” Sebastian reached out a hand and grabbed Kurt’s upper arm, the skin still hot from the enigmatic blue flame. “Kurt, talk to me.” He turned Kurt to face him, the flicker of heat still lurking behind the pupils of Kurt’s eyes. Kurt’s face twisted at Sebastian’s touch, but he didn’t try to pull free. He stared down at the arm that held him instead of looking into the young priest’s eyes. “Kurt, I’m not permitted to lie to the Scion,” Sebastian said, praying that Kurt would look up at him again. “It is considered a sin. But I am your priest, and you must confess to me as well.” Sebastian sighed, a heavy sound carrying a weight Kurt often forgot he bore. “How can I help you if you don’t confide in me?”

The anger in Kurt’s body made way to guilt and he felt himself break apart, as if the anger was the only thing left keeping him together.

“I hate this,” he ground out between clenched teeth, a low hiss that was so far from being actual words that if Sebastian didn’t know Kurt better he probably wouldn’t have understood.

“What?” Sebastian asked. “What do you hate?”

“I hate this power,” Kurt muttered. “I hate what it’s doing to me, what I’ve become. I hate that it’s taking over and I can’t seem to control it.” Kurt didn’t want to continue but he felt compelled at this point to reveal everything to Sebastian. “It’s taken the best parts of me, and I can’t run away from it.”

Sebastian shook his head, reaching out his other hand to take hold of Kurt’s arm.

“I don’t understand, Kurt,” Sebastian said. “I don’t know much about this power either. I mean, I’ve read about it and the priests told us about it. I know it might be scary, but to a point, it’s meant to be. It comes from a source that’s as wrathful as it is loving, but how can it take the best parts of you?”

Kurt didn’t want to tell him but Sebastian was right. Sebastian was his priest, and as much as Sebastian bent to the Scion, the Scion needed his protector, his priest, to keep him on the right path, and to keep the demons at bay, even the ones that lived inside of him.

Kurt licked his lips but there was no moisture left in his mouth, every bit of it stolen by the confession he had yet to make.

“My center…” Kurt couldn’t look at Sebastian while he spoke and he cursed himself for his lack of courage. “My center, where all of this comes from…” Kurt’s eyes scanned the parking lot and the morbid necropsy that surrounded them, “is my feelings…for you.”

Sebastian stepped back, but not far enough to take his hands off of Kurt. This was the first time Kurt allowed Sebastian to touch him in weeks, and there wasn’t any reason in heaven or on earth that he intended to let Kurt go.

“What feelings?” Sebastian asked, but it sounded more like a plea.

Kurt fixed his eyes back on the hands that held his arms. He sucked in a long breath, the glow beneath his skin preparing to spring back to life.

“That I love you,” Kurt whispered, the sound traveling only far enough past Kurt’s lips to strike right at the core of Sebastian’s heart without a single syllable going astray. “That I’m _in_ love with you.”

Sebastian wanted to laugh. He wanted to dance. He wanted to run and run and run. Kurt loved him. Kurt was _in_ love with him. He wanted to pick Kurt up in his arms and spin him around. He wanted to kiss him hard on the mouth and steal all of his breath away. Instead he took a deep, steadying breath and a good long look at Kurt, eyes downcast and squeezed shut, his skin still glowing blue. Sebastian could feel it crackle beneath his touch, the heat of it just uncomfortable enough to warn him away but Sebastian didn’t let go. For the first time Sebastian saw what Kurt was really hiding. Without having to say anything else Sebastian knew why Kurt was in so much pain. It all made so much sense now, the past few weeks, Kurt’s sudden distance, the lack of sleep. In hindsight it was blatantly obvious, and Sebastian felt so foolish for not having seen it before.

“Oh, Kurt…” Sebastian’s voice was a gentle breeze to Kurt’s ears. “Oh, Kurt. I’m so sorry. I should have…”

“No,” Kurt said, smiling for the first time in what seemed like forever. “You were just doing your job. I should have been better at doing mine.”

Kurt thought that would be the end of it - revealing his feelings, telling Sebastian the truth; he thought for sure that was the first step on the road to solving his problem. He had hoped that maybe somewhere in Sebastian’s collection of tomes and scrolls given to him by Tellemband would be some insight on how to control the power now that he knew what the source of it was, or at the very least how to curb his desires.

But there was nothing. Sebastian looked and looked, re-reading every journal, every book, translating ruins and glyphs over and over some nights. They still didn’t touch, and since they couldn’t touch, Sebastian refused to sleep until he came up with an answer. After the local police crime scene team stumbled upon their ‘training grounds’, Sebastian decided this was as good a time as any to relocate their operation and maybe, just maybe, a fresh start would give them some much needed perspective.

Sebastian moved them into a hotel that was more like a seedy, low budget apartment complex where rooms were rented by the week. At least it had a kitchen. Kurt loved to cook, and Sebastian needed to remind Kurt of all those things that he loved. They were on the fourth floor, next to a lonely old woman whose front patio was filled with scraggily brown plants, most of them months past dead, which she fawned over, tending them with all the confidence in the world that they would soon bloom again.

“Look at what Mrs. Clawson from next door gave us.” Sebastian grinned, holding out a dusty black pot with a single thorny branch sticking out, leaning to one side like the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

Kurt glanced up at it with the tiniest flick of his glowing blue eyes and scoffed.

“Why bother?” Kurt’s uncharacteristically sardonic tone made Sebastian flinch. “Why does she fuss over those poor dead things? Such a waste of time.”

Sebastian put the plant down gently on the kitchen table and looked at Kurt, the subtle glow now ever-present, lighting the dark room he sat in, sulking on the sofa with wide, unblinking eyes, like a child of light hiding in a cave and surrendering to a life in the dark.

Sebastian was losing him.

Enough was enough.

“That’s it, Kurt,” Sebastian said, bounding to the couch in three steps, “we’re getting out of here.”

Kurt didn’t resist when Sebastian gathered his body up into his arms, lighter than Sebastian ever remembered him being. He covered Kurt in a blanket and sprinted down four flights of sketchy stairs to their truck parked below. Sebastian wasn’t sure where he was going but he turned their fate over to the spirits that governed their lives, guided their path. Those phantom caretakers took the wheel from Sebastian’s hands and without knowing the where, they ended up exactly where they needed to be – an abandoned department of transportation depot on the far side of town, not much more than a vacant black lot hiding behind what remained of a cement building, used to store old drums full of water for use during the odd natural disaster.

Sebastian parked in an area where the building completely blocked the view of their vehicle from the street, though the area seemed fairly deserted. Kurt watched Sebastian with vague curiosity as the priest lined the barrels of water, fifteen in all, in a single file line horizontally in front of them, about fifty yards away.

“Okay, Scion,” Sebastian muttered when he was done, opening Kurt’s truck door and pulling him from his seat, “we started this together, and now we’re going to finish this together.” He half-walked, half-dragged Kurt’s body a distance from the truck in full view of all fifteen drums. “You have the power inside you, and it’s strong. You just need to learn how to control it.”

“Sebastian,” Kurt mumbled, “I can’t…”

“Yes, you can!” Sebastian interrupted harshly. “Damn it, Kurt! You can do this. You have to concentrate.”

“Sebastian…”

“No!” Sebastian yelled, turning Kurt’s face to meet his eyes. “No! You’re giving in, and I’m not going to lose you. Not now. Not to this.”

Sebastian propped Kurt up, helping him stand on his wobbly feet. Sebastian stood behind Kurt, preparing to catch him if he should fall. Sebastian fought to calm himself, to steady the shaking in his hands that came with the idea of Kurt slipping farther and farther away from him.

“Now, look at the barrels and listen to the sound of my voice.”

Kurt nodded. Sebastian wasn’t sure whether or not it was intentional but he would take whatever cooperation he could get. Sebastian leaned close to Kurt’s ear and sighed, letting the warmth of his breath bleed out over his neck. That single touch ignited the spark within Kurt completely, and before Sebastian could say or do anything else the first barrel exploded, sending a spray of water all around them. Sebastian swallowed hard, praying for strength, praying for guidance, but not for himself; for his Kurt.

“You can have me, Kurt,” Sebastian whispered, trailing a finger down Kurt’s shoulder to his elbow, and then further down to his wrist, “anytime you want me, anyway you want me. I am so in love with you, sometimes I can’t breathe.”

The second barrel exploded like the first, water shooting up like a geyser and landing on the dry cement with a hard splat. Kurt’s entire body shuddered.

“W-why are you doing this to me?”

“You need to learn how to cage your power, Kurt,” Sebastian murmured against Kurt’s skin. “If your love for me is your center, than you need to face it, not run away from it. I can’t watch you destroy yourself when I can help you.”

Kurt swallowed his desire and his whole throat ached.

Kurt felt Sebastian’s breath continue to warm his skin as he waited, waited for Kurt to object, waited for Kurt to pull away.

“I’ve loved you from the first second I saw you, before I knew what love was, and…and I’ve dreamt of having you,” Sebastian stuttered, tamping down his fear of telling Kurt his deepest secret, the only one he had ever kept from Kurt, “dreamt about having you every single night since I was thirteen years old.”

The third barrel didn’t just explode, it disintegrated. The water spread over the floor in a puddle where the barrel had been, but the metal was gone. Kurt’s skin turned blue; blue and clear as ocean glass, the heat of the fire that encompassed him rolling off his body in waves.

“I dream about being inside you…” Sebastian didn’t relent, even as the next two barrels imploded, crumbling at the exact same time like crushed soda cans, thin, frail, collapsing inward, the sound of it punching the air, “dream about your soft skin and your heat, jeez…” Sebastian dropped his head to Kurt’s shoulder, touching it briefly and then hovering so as not to get burned. “You must feel amazing.”

Tears collected in Kurt’s eyes only to evaporate away and never make it down his cheeks, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t crying; it didn’t mean his despair didn’t exist, that it wasn’t real. He had the same dreams, more so recently than before, and he wondered if maybe this power had punctured a hole into Sebastian’s mind and allowed them to share this experience to feed its own greed.

Kurt loved Sebastian – loved him more than duty, more than honor, more than his own life, though he knew that expressing that love would only end in tragedy. What they had, together or apart, was sacred, and he refused to let anything, anything at all, use it for any reason, and definitely not this.

He would not be corrupted. He would not be a pawn.

Kurt Hummel was the Scion, and the power that he wielded belonged in him and him alone. If it was fueled by love then so be it, but he was taking back control.

“I want to kiss every inch of your body, Kurt…”

Kurt let Sebastian’s words weave their way into his heart and cast their own magic. He let them blend with his energy and form a thread, something strong, indestructible, something that would last the way their love would last beyond evil and demons and supernatural quests, beyond his own death if that’s truly what his future held in store for him.

Another barrel blew, shot straight into the air raining water down on them, missing them by mere inches when it crashed back to the ground. Kurt turned toward Sebastian, turning his back to his targets which seemed clear in his mind regardless, and pressed their foreheads together, Sebastian grimacing against the sting of Kurt’s skin burning into his.

“You think that you don’t have a future, Kurt,” Sebastian said, raising his voice slightly, fighting over the sound of the drums exploding one by one in rapid succession in order to be heard, “but you do. You have a future. A future with me. And I swear that when this is all over I’ll make this up to you. Every day that I didn’t kiss you, every day that I didn’t make love to you. I’ll make it all up to you. I promise we’ll be together.”

The fifteenth barrel blew and Sebastian wrapped his arms around Kurt’s body, his forearms singed by the blue fire.

“I love you, Kurt,” Sebastian confessed quietly as his skin burned. “Forever I’ll love you, and that’s never going to change.”

The quiet that followed the destruction of the last drum startled Sebastian. So many explosions, one after another, that they rang in his ears, but now nothing but a faint sizzling sound which he assumed by this time was his own skin.

Everything around him was cool; the air surrounding him comfortable with the chill of a coastal wind blowing through his hair. His burns dissolved, absorbed back into his skin, the scorch marks disappearing as if they had never existed.

Sebastian looked into Kurt’s eyes, still alight with a simmering glow, like a dying ember. Kurt’s eyes rolled slowly skyward and Sebastian followed his gaze up to where a diamond-shaped piece of metal, torn from one of the barrels, spun above their heads. It whirled left and right, bending and unbending here and there, melting at the rough edges and corners, and then dropping to the ground with a metallic tinkle. It hit the asphalt much more delicately than Sebastian would have thought, and when it touched down, Kurt’s legs buckled beneath him and he fell along with it. Sebastian caught him quickly, cradling him to his body, feeling the drumming of his heart beat against his chest.

Sebastian carried Kurt to the truck and helped him carefully into his seat, reclining the back so that Kurt could lie down. He felt like such a bizarre contradiction of success and failure. Kurt looked at peace, breathing deeply and evenly in sleep. He wanted to leave and get Kurt as far away from there as possible, but curiosity nagged at Sebastian, pulling him back to the spot and that piece of melted metal lying on the concrete.

Sebastian crept up to it, measuring his steps in case he needed to bolt back to the truck, unsure as to what the piece of metal was, or what it had turned into. As it came into view, the butter yellow metal from the drum having turning into a burnished gold, Sebastian stopped…and smiled, as a priest proud of his charge; as a man in love, touched by such a token as the heart laying at his feet. Sebastian crouched down and picked it up, feeling the weight of it in his hand and then folding his fingers around it.

It was Kurt’s heart, and he made a silent vow to keep it safe.

He drove at full tilt back to the hotel, parked in the same fortunate spot, and carried Kurt up the stairs, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible with a limp human body dangling in his arms. He laid Kurt out on the bed, every muscle in his body relaxed, his face young and innocent looking, and for the thousandth time Sebastian cursed a world that would burden such an amazing man with its sins, and a God that would force so much sacrifice onto one of his most devoted followers.

Sebastian climbed into bed beside Kurt, not sure how he would feel about being held while he slept, but as he was throwing more and more caution to the wind every single day Sebastian wrapped his arms around Kurt’s body and buried his face into Kurt’s neck.

Hours they slept, or it could have been days, but when Sebastian opened his eyes, light streamed in through the parted curtains, and Kurt was gone.

Sebastian bolted upright in bed, panting heavily, straining to focus in the dim light in search of his charge whom he found, much to his relief, puttering about the kitchen, putting dishes into the sink and a carton of milk back into the refrigerator. Kurt stood straight as he walked, at ease with his body, the telltale blue glow gone. He turned back to Sebastian at the sound of the bed springs squeaking and caught the look of worry in Sebastian’s eyes, and Sebastian saw the burn in Kurt’s. The fire within them was there but faint, and it had changed. It wasn’t foreign and overwhelming, or dark as Kurt often feared. It was Kurt’s flame, subtle and warm, entirely under his control.

Kurt walked over to the bed and sat beside his priest, scooting as close to Sebastian as he could. He took Sebastian’s hand for the first time in over a month without persuasion or prompting. Kurt smiled and Sebastian knew that whatever answer Kurt had been looking for, he had found it. Kurt turned his eyes, deeply blue and full of all the things he hadn’t given a voice to, over to the kitchen counter. Sebastian’s eyes followed and landed on a cake – perfectly domed shape, lightly dusted with sugar, and so rich Sebastian conjured the taste of it in his mouth without even taking a bite.

Or maybe that was Kurt sharing the taste of it with him through his thoughts, through this new connection they seemed to have, an unobstructed window into each other’s minds. He pictured the two of them lying together in bed and feeding each other with their fingers, laughing and smiling without a single worry in the world instead of the world being their worry.

In the dim light Sebastian saw the familiar bluish glow. It crept over Kurt’s skin in a wave from where his hand held Sebastian’s, rushing up his arm, through his neck, illuminating every vein and artery as it went, over his cheeks and finally lighting up his eyes. On the counter, a single candle fizzled and then flickered, a small droplet of flame consuming the wick, and nothing more.

No massive explosion. No earth-shattering destruction.

Sebastian’s jaw dropped.

“Kurt, you…”

“Wait,” Kurt said, his voice soft as the dim light in the room but all encompassing; it spoke to Sebastian’s heart and his heart alone. Kurt lifted Sebastian’s hand slowly, reverently to his mouth, his eyes of twinkling blue flame still locked onto Sebastian’s eyes of green, growing wider as Kurt brought his lips closer to Sebastian’s skin.

Kurt’s lips brushed Sebastian’s hand, feather light and soft. When he pressed a kiss to the back of Sebastian’s hand, Sebastian sucked in a sharp breath. Kurt’s eyes darted away, but not out of shame or shyness. They directed Sebastian’s gaze again to the opposite side of the room where the pathetic little rose bush clung to life. Another ripple of blue light flowed over Kurt’s body, chasing itself on the surface of his skin, and before Sebastian’s eyes the rose bush straightened, its desiccated brown stems turning plump and green, the drooping buds reforming, transforming from a morbid grey to the blush of pink that nature had originally gifted them.

Sebastian held on tighter to Kurt’s hand, the kiss that Kurt placed on the back of it tingling like a strike of electricity.

“How…how did you know you could do that?”

“I actually found out by accident,” Kurt said. He looked over to the window and a sweep of his eyes pulled the curtain back, giving Sebastian a clear view of Mrs. Clawson’s patio, all of her previously dead plants bursting with life, flowers blooming fuller and larger as Kurt looked at them. The deceptively frail old woman danced among them, giggling with her hands pressed to her mouth and tears in her eyes. “It never dawned on me that I could do something as wonderful as that.”

“Kurt…” Sebastian took his hands and kissed them, feeling giddy inside. “I am so proud of you.”

Kurt nodded, but in the midst of Sebastian’s joy, Kurt looked melancholy. Kurt leaned forward and Sebastian wrapped his arms around Kurt’s torso, pulling him back down onto the bed beside him.

“I’m sorry, Sebastian,” Kurt said, happy to be back in Sebastian’s arms.

Sebastian chuckled.

“The Scion doesn’t have to apologize,” he muttered, almost as if by rote. Kurt sighed. He looked up into Sebastian’s face, his signature half smile twisting the corner of his mouth.

“My name is Kurt Elizabeth Hummel,” Kurt said with a hard, determined stare, “and I am apologizing to the man that I love.”

Sebastian’s half smile turned into a fuller, more genuine one as he pulled Kurt close to his chest.

“Apology accepted, Kurt.” Sebastian placed a hidden kiss into the part on Kurt’s head. “Just please, don’t shut me out again.”

Sebastian squeezed his eyes shut tight against the light in the room and the blue glow in Kurt’s eyes, and breathed in to catch a whiff of Kurt’s scent – his vanilla shampoo and the chocolate from the cake, the candle burning on the kitchen counter, and Kurt, plain old Kurt, who smelled like spring and sunshine to Sebastian and always would.

The only other words he spoke to Kurt he said with his mind and his heart.

_Don’t shut me out, Kurt. I can’t live without you._

 


	57. The Sleeping Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a short and sweet little one-shot that follows 'The Beast That Lies Within' where Sebastian discovers the significance of the metal heart totem that Kurt made. Romance, fluff, supernatural elements, loose interpretations of religious themes.

Sebastian tried to sleep but a shadow in his mind kept getting in the way. He pulled his body closer to Kurt, chasing the warmth of the Scion's body, the soft sounds of his breathing while he slumbered at peace for the first time in too long, and that smell of jasmine and vanilla that reminded Sebastian of warm spring breezes and his beautiful daydreams of being with Kurt, together as friends and lovers, with no barriers between them. Apart from that (though he might not ever outright admit it) even though his job was mostly to protect the Scion, Sebastian felt much safer with Kurt wrapped in his arms, and not for the simple reason that Kurt had learned to tap into the limitless power that existed within him. Sebastian felt that the moment they touched, when Sebastian held Kurt close and they slept side by side, the evil of the world disappeared. It paused, along with time, the rising of the sun, hell even the rotation of the earth, and nothing could touch them or what they had together, as innocent and unconsummated as it needed to be. Though they struggled and fought and ran during the day, the shield of true love guarded them while they slept.

All of these things soothed Sebastian. They always did, but for now they didn't bring him any closer to rest.

A presence lurked nearby that Sebastian couldn't identify.

The metal heart that Kurt had fashioned out of a piece of rusted metal from the old water barrel he had destroyed fascinated Sebastian. No longer a pitted piece of old steel, it was smooth and polished, a luxe-looking gold that gleamed without light. He carried it with him everywhere. The totem seemed to _want_ him to carry it. He wore lounge pants with pockets to bed so he could keep it with him while he slept. It sang to him, and when he held it in his hands and looked at it, it seemed to vibrate with power. The power didn't lure Sebastian to it so much as it simply intrigued him. It reminded him of something that he read when he was young, before he joined the order. No, he didn't read it; his mother read it to him in those days before she died. Sebastian racked his brain trying to remember the title to the stupid book. He vaguely remembered the plot had rats in it, rats that could talk, and there was a stone – a precious, valuable stone with special powers that slept until given to someone with courage in their heart.

The stone slept.

Courage of the heart…

He let his mind ponder these things when he finally drifted away to sleep with Kurt curled up against him until one night his brain stumbled on the answer.

_Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH._

The necklace in the book…the blood red stone; it held a power that lay dormant. It waited patiently for someone worthy to come along and when they did, it would hear their call. But the totem he held onto was different. He could feel it breathe.

This heart didn't sleep.

It actively, consciously waited.

Sebastian had a feeling it waited for him.

One night, the heart became tired of waiting.

Sebastian awoke to the blue flame in Kurt's skin glowing dimly, pulsing in waves, heating his pale skin. Sebastian felt a crackle of electricity echoing in response, and that echo came from the metal heart in his pocket. Sebastian reached in slowly, half expecting the metal to be scorching hot but it was cool to the touch. It sparked and hissed, and when Sebastian brought it closer to Kurt's skin, an arch like lightning threaded between them.

The heart, Sebastian realized with his jaw dropped in awe, had been infused with Kurt's incredible power.

Sebastian pulled the heart away and the thread of lightning broke, but the heart continued to glow. Kurt's skin grew brighter in response.

"Amazing," Sebastian whispered, looking over the metal object, peering at it intently. Suddenly, his mind flooded with a hundred memories that weren't all his own.

Memories of the day Kurt and Sebastian first met - that painful broken nose he had and how Kurt had fixed it.

The two of them sitting side by side, studying together in class, passing notes when the priests weren't paying attention.

A rainy afternoon spent trying on each other's clothes for no good reason.

Kurt splitting his dinner with Sebastian, giving him half of his chicken Alfredo and Sebastian giving Kurt all his baby tomatoes.

The first birthday cake Kurt taught Sebastian to make and how it tilted precariously to the left, but Kurt told him it was the best cake he had ever tasted.

Sebastian's daydream of making love to Kurt underneath their favorite willow tree, the flush on Kurt's porcelain skin beneath the setting golden sun, and his lips - rosy red and swollen from kissing - begging Sebastian for just one more…

The final fantasy, the most powerful one, the one that struck Sebastian straight through the heart like a hot branding iron, making sure it stayed imprinted there forever, was one of Kurt's.

Kurt and Sebastian on their wedding day...and the intimate details of their wedding night. Sebastian slowly stripping a black tuxedo from Kurt's body, button by button, pressing kiss after kiss to Kurt's skin as Sebastian exposed every creamy inch, threading his fingers through Kurt's walnut-colored hair, the blue eyes that locked onto his with a look of love and trust – eyes that glowed slightly with blue fire.

This fantasy was new.

It was recent.

It was after Kurt learned to control his blue flame.

"Oh my…" Sebastian moaned, his eyes drifting shut, and all of a sudden a stunning heat, not painful but overpowering, shot through Sebastian's veins. It filled every cell of him, from his toes to his brain. He felt whole, complete, overwhelmed.

Sebastian opened his eyes slowly, focusing on the golden heart he held clutched in his hand, unfolding his fingers to get a better look at the object. What he saw was his reflection staring back at him…his own face with glowing blue eyes. The sheets, the bed, the whole room, everything around him, shimmered with its light.

Sebastian was engulfed entirely in Kurt's blue flame.

Sebastian's body shuddered at the thought - the thought of Kurt's power moving through him, inside him. Sebastian could feel him on his body, covering his skin, that smell of jasmine and vanilla warm and potent just beneath his nose.

The idea of it playing in his mind made the flame glow brighter. Sebastian raised his other hand to his face and his eyes went wide. It was consumed completely by a ball of blue fire.

"Holy…and…shit…" Sebastian murmured as he moved his hand left and right, watching the flame shift with the twist of his hand.

"Sebastian," Kurt muttered, turning to face the priest with his eyes still closed, "don't curse so much."

"Uh…Kurt?" Sebastian whispered, not wanting to upset the flame in any way by talking too loudly. "Kurt, open your eyes."

Sebastian saw the glow in Kurt's eyes before he even opened them, his lids illuminating from within in the presence of another blue flame. Kurt peered at Sebastian through narrowed, sleep heavy lids, but when he caught sight of the fire alight on Sebastian's skin, his eyelids popped open.

"Holy…and…"

"Shit," Sebastian finished for him, "yeah. I know."

"But how?" Kurt reached out a hand, fingers dancing in the blue flame, trying to ascertain its origin.

"I think…" Sebastian showed Kurt the metal heart, "that this has something to do with it."

Kurt held his hand over the heart. Thin tendrils of white lightning shot out at him, not in a threatening way, more as if in acknowledgement of where it came from. Kurt plucked the heart out of Sebastian's hand and the flame that covered Sebastian's skin blinked out.

"Try to do that again," Kurt advised, feeling a little bit of his own blue flame recharging the heart in his palm.

Sebastian concentrated on his hand, staring at his skin, trying to get the blue flame to reappear, but nothing happened. Kurt slipped the heart into Sebastian's palm and his hand burst into flames, the fire climbing high with the strength of his focus. Sebastian laughed.

"What…what do you think it means?" Sebastian asked. Kurt sat up straighter and shrugged. He couldn't look away from the fire on Sebastian's skin. He felt a connection to it. It reached out from Sebastian to get to him, and in return, it flowed from him.

"Let me…" Kurt stared into Sebastian's eyes and Sebastian felt a surge, a charge of energy that started from the tips of his hair and traveled in a ripple down his back.

"Interesting," Kurt whispered.

"Wait…what?" Sebastian asked. "What did you just try to do?"

"I…uh…" Kurt ducked his head, looking down at his hands with a sheepish smile on his face, "I tried to set your hair on fire."

"What?" Sebastian laughed.

"Well, I needed to know if this blue fire would protect you…" Kurt swallowed hard, "from me."

"Kurt," Sebastian said, reaching out and touching his hand lightly, sucking in a sharp breath when the fire united, "this fire _is_ you. I was never in any danger."

Kurt bit his lip and stared at their joined hands, the rush of blood in his cheeks visible through the blue flame as a deep purple stain on his skin. Sebastian smiled at the surreal beauty of it all.

Sebastian the priest and the Scion, his protector. It made Sebastian's heart flutter.

"Well, what do you think we should do now?" Sebastian said. Kurt blinked once and extinguished his own flame. Sebastian tried, but he couldn't do it. He didn't have Kurt's skill or finesse. Kurt raised a hand and trailed it down Sebastian's skin. The blue flame followed him, winking and expiring beneath Kurt's hand.

Kurt's lips cocked into a mischievous grin.

"Do you know where we can go buy a pig?"


	58. Owner of My Heart - Part 1: Confessions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So here is the start of a two-part chapter for the Scion verse, ‘Owner of My Heart’. This follows after ‘The Sleeping Heart’. In this chapter, Kurt teaches Sebastian how to control the power of the blue flame, and Kurt tells Sebastian something that’s been on his mind lately. Romance, angst, AU, supernatural elements, loose interpretation of religious themes. Warnings for sexual tension.

_I am the light._

_I am the fire._

_I command the flame, the flame does not command me._

Sebastian calmed his mind the way Kurt showed him, breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth to the rhythm of his heart until his whole body ebbed and flowed like the spiraling breeze around his feet or the waves crashing on the nearby shore, his entire being down to his soul vibrating with power. He concentrated on the quarter sitting fifty feet away, balanced in the mouth of a glass cola bottle. With the heart totem in his pocket and Kurt by his side, he called upon the power of Kurt’s blue fire, tapping into the fantasy that never failed to fuel the flame within him – a single kiss, charmed and innocent, one that they had not yet shared; the picture in his mind so clear he could call it forth without any effort.

He envisioned kissing Kurt for the first time here, on the shores of the Atlantic at sunrise, with the first rays of morning light throwing sparkles across the water. He pictured those sparkles reflecting in Kurt’s eyes, his true eyes, so brilliantly blue they put the waking sky to shame. They would sit side by side on the cool sand and watch the world come alive together. Kurt would shiver when the wind came in off the water, and Sebastian would scoot closer, putting an arm around his shoulders, huddling their bodies against the cold. Kurt would laugh that adorable, bashful laugh he got when Sebastian held him, his eyes drifting to his clasped hands so he cheeks wouldn’t color.

Sebastian’s hand would creep up Kurt’s back to the nape of his neck, fingers tangling in his hair, scratching gently at his scalp until Kurt melted into his touch. At some point Kurt would turn to look at Sebastian…he always did…and Sebastian would inch forward, holding his breath, waiting to see if Kurt would pull away.

But he wouldn’t, because this was their time to be together. They would have earned it, however they were meant to, whatever sacrifice needed to be made. It would be over and done. Sebastian pictured the look on Kurt’s face – a little frightened and slightly unsure, but overshadowed but Kurt’s overwhelming trust, because Kurt trusted Sebastian, and Sebastian would never betray that trust.

Sebastian would rub his nose along the tip of Kurt’s and make him laugh, make him relax into Sebastian’s embrace. This kiss itself would be just the lightest brush of Sebastian’s lips against Kurt’s, but the thought of that touch, of Kurt’s skin against his, sent electricity crackling all over Sebastian’s skin, and burned in his stomach like the golden rays of the rising sun.

Sebastian smirked when the fire lit his eyes.

Kurt stood close to his pupil and watched as Sebastian’s eyes glowed blue, subdued, controlled; and in a second the coin spun madly on its pedestal. It took less time for Sebastian to conquer the blue flame than it had for Kurt. Sebastian had his fair share of decimating pig corpses and exploding water barrels, but he had Kurt to guide him. With the power that the fire gave him, Kurt was able to breach Sebastian’s mind, entering through that window that had been created and show him how to manipulate the fire, how to control it, how it felt when he truly had it under his command, and where the power came from – what memory to use to tap into it.

That kiss was as much Kurt’s daydream as it was Sebastian’s.

“See, now you’re just showing off,” Kurt grumbled playfully.

“What?” Sebastian mocked since he was, actually, showing off. “You told me to move the quarter and I did. See…” Sebastian pointed to the coin twirling in the air, “it’s moving.”

“At least you didn’t rip it to shreds this time,” Kurt said, calling the coin to him with a blink of his eyes and a fire of his own. “We need it to do the laundry.” Kurt grabbed the coin from the air when it came to him, pressing it into his palm and feeling the heat it held – Sebastian’s heat. He put the coin deep into his pocket. There was no way it would find itself stuck into the coin slot of a common, every day laundry machine. “You know, I think you’re better at this than even me.”

“Never,” Sebastian said, picking Kurt up from behind and spinning him around, letting the blue glow on his skin call to the flame in Kurt until Kurt’s porcelain complexion glowed with the fire. “The power belongs to you. I’m just borrowing it. No one can control it the way that you do.”

Kurt’s whole body warmed at Sebastian’s words, and another war began within him. He didn’t want to feel pride in Sebastian’s praise. Pride was a deadly sin, but he couldn’t help himself. He smiled sadly at a loss for his own feelings, and not only the ones about Sebastian and the love that they felt for each other, but for his entire life – the people he’d lost, the teachings he thought he needed to survive, his future which was still so incredibly uncertain.

One new and confusing thing about not living at the temple with the priests was that Kurt and Sebastian felt free. Kurt had to admit that for once it felt nice not having to bow to ritual or set study times. They slept late, ate leftover pizza and cake for breakfast, sometimes lounging out in the sunlight on the balcony of their rented rooms and letting time drip away around them. They were playing at being adults, doing whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted though their lives, ironically enough, still revolved around service. Sebastian lived to serve and protect the Scion, and the Scion lived to serve and protect the world. After a while Kurt realized how much he had relied on the schedule the priests set and all the things that they did in preparation for the impending battle – preparing their souls to become worthy. Things he and Sebastian hadn’t done since they left the temple.

Kurt wanted to feel happier, to forget about responsibility and duty and lose himself in the comfort of Sebastian’s arms, but even as Sebastian twirled him around, spinning him out till he lost his balance and couldn’t help but laugh out loud, his smile slipped and Sebastian noticed. Sebastian knew that a pain brewed somewhere in Kurt’s heart; ever since they started sharing their deeper dreams and fantasies with one another he had felt it. Sebastian didn’t call attention to it and when Kurt looked up into Sebastian’s face his smile returned full-force, the shadow of whatever doubt lurked in his mind having passed. Sebastian smiled back and nipped at the tip of Kurt’s nose to hear him laugh again. Sebastian shared in his laughter, but secretly he hoped his Scion would come to him with his concerns in time.

***

Night fell quickly and they spent it mostly in silence. After dinner, Sebastian read from an intimidatingly large volume of druidic rites and spells; worn and embossed leather cover full to bursting with fragile, waxed pages as thin as onion skin. Kurt puttered about the kitchen with a granite mortar and pestle, grinding the herbs and floral inks they used to decorate Kurt’s chest with protective spells and runes, except this time it was Kurt’s turn to paint the symbols on Sebastian’s skin, and the more he thought about it, the more his heart raced and his body trembled.

It was all he could do to focus on not setting the powdered mixture on fire.

Kurt showered first while Sebastian added oils to the ground powder and spoke the necessary blessings over it; blessings Kurt had never been taught but which Sebastian promised to teach him. While Sebastian showered, Kurt looked over the cheat sheet Sebastian had made for him. Kurt shook his head in quiet awe. Sebastian drew all these strange symbols from memory. Kurt knew a few of them, but he was at a loss for the rest, and as for the translation…

It was humbling. If not for the circumstances of his birth, he would be useless in this endeavor. Kurt wouldn’t even know where to begin to learn all of this. He spoke French and he read Latin; if he squinted his eyes and tilted his head he could muddle through reading Greek, but these were all scribbles and gobbledygook. Sebastian learned this, spent most of his young life learning this, in the hopes of someday protecting him. Sure all the young acolytes learned it, but he remembered Sebastian at the temple, remembered the long hours they spent together out in the courtyard under the willow tree, or sitting in his cell, when Sebastian would read and read and study and read like the world depended on him devouring and memorizing every word, every intonation.

Kurt looked around him, at the room where he sat, a step up from their first little rat shack of a motel room definitely, but still musty and shabby, obviously not the sort of place an ex-trust fund baby would choose to live.

It seemed like such a waste, such a shame. Sebastian worked so hard, studied so much, for this? To live here? To spend every second running away from shadows in the dark and those same people that vowed to protect him from them?

Still Sebastian studied, every second that he could, in an effort to keep Kurt safe at all times. It never ended for him, and he did his job well. The order should be proud that they produced such a competent priest.

But if the order ever found them, they would most likely kill Sebastian on sight for kidnapping the Scion.

Kurt had never wanted to stop being the Scion so much before, but for Sebastian’s sake, he would give it all away.

He had to stop thinking that way. He needed strength or the moment Sebastian stepped naked out of the shower Kurt _would_ give it all away.

The bathroom door opened and Kurt walked around the bed, putting the piece of furniture between them. Sebastian had his towel tied around his waist and when he caught sight of Kurt standing nervously by the bed, he chuckled, misinterpreting the pallor on his face.

“Don’t worry,” he said with a gentle smirk. “You can’t mess it up too badly. And if you do, I’ll just shower again and we can start over.”

Sebastian tossed Kurt a wet wash cloth, and Kurt broke from his stupor to catch it. Sebastian stared boldly into Kurt’s eyes as he climbed on the mattress, loosening the knot on the side of the towel and draping it across his lap to make Kurt a little more comfortable.

Sebastian watched Kurt straddle his hips, settling himself slowly, taking heed of the towel on Sebastian’s lap. Kurt laid the cheat sheet flat on the bed, and then reached for the paintbrush and the pot of ink, positioning everything where he could reach it and where the little pot wouldn’t spill as he moved.

Kurt stalled for a moment, stuttering a few times before he could bring himself to commit to a spot on Sebastian’s skin and start writing. When the paintbrush made contact with Sebastian’s skin and Kurt swirled it deftly, branding Sebastian with the first mark, Sebastian almost moaned. He hadn’t given Kurt enough credit during this process. How could Kurt endure this so patiently, so silently, when one touch sent Sebastian’s mind whirling with thoughts of Kurt’s body beneath him, whimpering, writhing, gasping with pleasure?

The paintbrush shook in Kurt’s hands as he tried to carefully paint the elegant rune symbols on Sebastian’s chest. Kurt tried his best not to be distracted by his beautiful body. Kurt had no problem whatsoever looking at him. Sebastian’s body was a gift from the creator, and like his own it was blessed, but Kurt had a hard time thinking of the blessing beneath him without wanting to run his tongue over every inch of it. Try as Sebastian might, as much as he knew this was difficult for Kurt, he couldn’t help the way his green eyes darkened when Kurt shifted down his body; or how his tongue swiped over his lower lip when Kurt bit his own in deep concentration, fighting to keep his hand steady. Sebastian wanted desperately to suck that lower lip into his mouth and kiss it, to make Kurt tremble more.

At some point between embarrassment at his body’s reaction and striving for perfection, Kurt’s eyes clouded over, and Sebastian knew that whatever had been bothering him earlier bothered him still, though he had yet to talk with Sebastian about it. Sebastian knew he should wait a day or two and give Kurt space to sort out his thoughts, but now that they seemed to share so many of those thoughts he didn’t like it when Kurt put up walls between them. He was spoiled by the relationship they had, not just as priest to Scion, or friends even. Their relationship was something unique and special. It was all their own. They created it, and it existed only for them. Sebastian found that he didn’t want Kurt’s full disclosure; he needed it. The more that they shared of themselves with each other, the more they had gone from being two separate people to becoming a single entity.

They were one in their thoughts, in their feelings, and in Kurt’s fire.

Theoretically, there was only one more thing they had yet to share.

“You know, it’s been a while since I’ve taken a confession from you,” Sebastian said, watching Kurt work on a particularly difficult symbol over his right flank. Kurt sighed when his hand slipped too far and he ruined the mark. He picked up the damp washcloth from where it lay beside his knee and wiped the ruin away with immense care so as not to wreck the rest. Sebastian’s breath hitched at the delicate touch. “Why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind?”

“I…” Kurt wiped away the mark, relieved that he was able to leave the others untouched. “I don’t really have anything to confess.”

“I’m not saying that you do,” Sebastian clarified. “But, it might help relieve some of the burden.” Sebastian took Kurt’s free hand and laced their fingers together, giving Kurt a connection to hold on to. “I know there’s something on your mind…something you’re not telling me…something you’ve blocked me from seeing.” Kurt ducked his head, his cheeks coloring with shame. “Please, I can’t help you if I don’t know what it is.”

Kurt gazed down at their joined hands and sighed. It was strange how they could be in bed together, a shirtless Kurt straddling Sebastian’s mostly naked body and yet this point of contact, their hands with fingers twined together, felt so blissfully intimate.

“I want to get married,” Kurt said, his voice barely a breath above a whisper. “I want to have children.” Sebastian’s eyes widened where he looked up at Kurt, and Kurt rolled his eyes. “Not today, of course, but someday, and I’m beginning to think that’s not going to happen for me.”

Sebastian brought Kurt’s stained hand to his lips and kissed his knuckles. He let his mouth linger there, brushing his lips over Kurt’s skin, thinking about Kurt’s confession.

“Kurt, if you were a regular human being, and you could marry anyone you wanted, would you?”

Kurt turned away for a moment, and when he tipped his face up to the ceiling Sebastian could see tears collecting beneath his eyes.

“Of course I would,” Kurt whispered.

Sebastian waited a moment with Kurt’s hand pressed against his mouth.

“Would you marry me?” Sebastian asked.

Kurt dropped his eyes to meet Sebastian’s, his expression blank but his eyes glowing blue to mask the heartbreak within them.

“Of course I would.”

Sebastian smiled, the grin of a man finally at peace with his place in the world.

“So, let’s do it.”

Kurt pulled his hand out of Sebastian’s grasp, scuttling backward to remove himself from the sting of Sebastian’s ridiculous idea.

“What…what the…what are you talking about?”

Sebastian sat up quickly and grabbed Kurt’s wrist back, pulling Kurt toward him.

“Let’s get hand-fasted.”

Kurt stopped and stared, confused.

“Hand-fasted?”

“Yup.” Sebastian wrapped an arm around Kurt’s waist and held him steady to keep him from trying to get away before he finished. “We’ll do it ourselves. We don’t need to find someone to perform the ceremony. We don’t need any witnesses. Just you and me and maybe God if he wants to come. What do you say?”

A small smile passed over Kurt’s lips for a second and disappeared as his cheeks colored more.

“But, we wouldn’t be able to…to consummate…”

“We don’t have to,” Sebastian assured him. “Historically hand-fasting has been used to pledge one person to another for all sorts of reasons, like a contract. The tying of the hands can symbolize the consummating of the marriage. It can be temporary, last a year and a day, last for all eternity…or last until the love lasts.” Sebastian kissed Kurt’s hand again gently. “How long do you think our love will last?”

Kurt dropped his head against Sebastian’s shoulder.

“For all eternity.”

Sebastian smiled.

“That’s right, gorgeous,” he said. “Besides, the ceremony is for us. Why does it need rules?” Sebastian chuckled. “How can rules even apply to us anymore? You’re a magical holy weapon and I’m…” Sebastian’s eyes shifted to the wall behind Kurt’s shoulder before he answered, “I’m the _bastard_ son of a _bastard_ crime boss.”

Kurt raised his head and eyed Sebastian’s profile – set and strong and full of so much unresolved regret. Kurt reached out a hand and pulled Sebastian’s eyes back toward his.

“You’re a priest,” Kurt said with reverence and respect. On anyone else’s lips it would have sounded false, but on Kurt’s it sounded like the highest honor ever bestowed to a mere human being.

“Priests answer to the higher power,” Sebastian said. “They devote their lives to what’s true and good. Their motives are selfless.” Sebastian shook his head. “My motives never were. I’m no priest. Not like the kind you deserve.”

Sebastian turned away again to face the wall.

“Tell me why you did it then?” Kurt pulled his hand from Sebastian’s grasp and looped his arms over Sebastian’s shoulders.

Sebastian smirked.

“You know why I did it.”

“Tell me again?” Kurt asked, his smile shy, his hand twirling the brush in his hand behind Sebastian’s neck. “Please?”

Sebastian fixed Kurt with a determined, unashamed stare.

“I did it because I knew I wanted to be with you,” he admitted. “I knew I would do anything to keep you safe. I did it because being a priest was never my calling. You are.”

Kurt rested his forehead against Sebastian’s and sighed happily.

“Then you are the best protector I could have ever asked for,” Kurt said, giggling with nerves when he noticed how close his mouth had come to Sebastian’s, his lips lush and tempting and begging to be kissed.

Kurt leaned back a hair before he could persuade himself to indulge.

“And, yes, Sebastian. Yes, I will marry you.”


	59. What Would It Take?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, before I even start, let me just say I’m sorry. This is a reaction fic to the Glee episode 5x15 ‘Bash’. Why am I sorry? Because I know this episode was difficult for a lot of people, but this idea niggled at me until I had no choice but to write it down. Warning: mention of assault, Kurt’s hospitalization, and episode spoilers.

Sebastian walks quickly down the hallway, not making eye contact with the nurses he passes, trying to look like he belongs there. This is the third time he’s been there and he still hasn’t gotten to see Kurt. He doesn’t want much. Just a glimpse; a peek to make sure that Kurt is okay, so that he doesn’t have to rely on second-hand eavesdropped information to calm his frayed nerves.

It was a fluke that he found out about the attack at all. Blaine sent out a mass text to mutual friends, asking for messages of love and support on Kurt’s Facebook wall. Sebastian assumed that Blaine was so shaken up that he forgot to take him off his contact list. He didn’t ask questions. He decided to do the small-minded thing and chalk Blaine’s little faux pas up to fate.

The first time Sebastian showed up, the whole Scooby crew was there, holding vigil in the lobby, waiting for any word. The second time, as luck would have it, Kurt’s father had just arrived. That’s how Sebastian happened to find out what room Kurt was in.

Now he hopes he can slip in during the changing of the guard and get a second alone with Kurt. He has no idea what he will actually say. He kind of hopes that Kurt will be asleep and he can just stand by his side for a moment…maybe hold his hand. For once, he doesn’t want to be an intrusion; he wants to be an addition. He wants to add his strength to the tower of support that surrounds Kurt Hummel.

Sebastian sees the room up ahead. He hears the blood rushing in his ears as he tries to stay as inconspicuous as possible. The door is propped open and from the direction he approaches it appears to be dark inside except for the soft blue glow of equipment lights scattered around the room. Sebastian creeps slowly to the doorway and peeks inside. His heart falls. He won’t get his moment. Kurt’s father sits asleep in a chair beside his son; and lying in the bed alongside Kurt is Blaine, wrapped around him partially like a vine.

Sebastian takes a step inside the room so as not to arouse suspicion from the night shift nurses bustling by. He blinks a few times to let his eyes adjust to the dim light, then takes his first good look at Kurt’s face – the cut on his lip, the gash on his cheek, his black eye. He focuses on the injuries - the marks on his beautiful face, the cuts on his knuckles. Kurt fought back, and he has the scars to prove it.

Sebastian’s fingers flex in the air, balling into fists, his whole body shaking with rage.

Rage at the men who beat him up; who dared lay a hand on Kurt.

Rage at Blaine for not being there when Kurt needed him. Where the fuck was he? What was so important that he would leave Kurt to walk around the city alone at night?

Rage at the frightened fuck-face who took off without even a thank you; who left Kurt to fight his battle alone.

Rage at Kurt for being so selfless, so brave, that he would put himself in danger for someone he didn’t even know.

But most of all, rage at himself for being such a fucking coward. Sebastian Smythe, the big man on campus. All this time at NYU, he stalked Kurt’s Facebook page, followed his posts on the NYADA blogs, always made a point to go out of his way and ‘bump’ into him unexpectedly, acting like a jerk or an asshole when he passed him on the street to get a rise out of him.

Never once did Sebastian tell Kurt the truth. Never once did he tell him how he really felt.

How he feels that Kurt is making a mistake marrying Blaine.

How it probably doesn’t matter because he feels there is no way Kurt would fall for him now.

How he wants Kurt to give him a chance, just one chance.

He doesn’t need to burden Kurt with any of this, not while he is lying unconscious in a hospital bed, but what if there was no tomorrow? What if those bastards had beaten Kurt to death?

Sebastian lets his hands fall open and the rage bleeds away.

Today is a gift. For now he has time. Whether he deserves it or not, Sebastian has another day to figure out his next move.

Why did it take having Kurt’s face bashed in for him to see just how much of an ass he has been? So much time wasted. If he had played things differently, if he had changed the game, that might be him wrapped around Kurt right now…or even better. They wouldn’t be in the hospital, because there’s no way anyone would have touched Kurt with him around.

Sebastian sighs. It is a nice daydream, but the reality lies before him, morbidly bruised and broken, and he can’t take it anymore.

There is nothing in that room that he can change. Not his charm or his sass or his money can make anything different. He backs out of the doorway, unable to look away even though he knows he has to go.

He’ll try again later…and again…and again. He will find a way to make Kurt hear the confessions he keeps locked away. He knows that he isn’t above doing anything now. He has no dignity. He needs Kurt, and he can’t wait until another act of violence takes Kurt away from him for good.

It takes all his strength to turn away from Kurt’s room and start back down the hall, but he does, the floor creaking beneath his feet along the way.

He looks away just as a pair of tired, wary eyes open for a moment and follow his slouched body walk past the door as he leaves.


	60. What Wouldn't I Do?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here is a kind of follow-up to my ‘Bash’ reaction one-shot 'What Would It Take?'
> 
> I have to apologize for this one because it ended up a little fluffier than I originally intended, but as you can see when you read it Sebastian objects to the fluffiness, too, so I think we’re all good ;) Warnings for mentions of anxiety and symptoms of PTSD. Brief mention of Kurt helping a guy being beaten, but nothing graphic whatsoever. Mention of Klaine.

Kurt is not okay. Sebastian can see it when he follows him (at a distance) to school. Kurt has been out of the hospital for more than a week, and to the outside observer Kurt looks completely recovered. He puts on a brave face that’s only slightly clouded with fear. He smiles for his friends, but he doesn’t quite share in their laughter, their carefree attitude as they walk down the street on their way to NYADA. His eyes dart around. He flinches inconspicuously when someone touches him unexpectedly. He walks more hunched over than usual.

His friends appear to dote over him. They laugh too loud, talk too animatedly, but there’s an undercurrent of falseness to it, as if it’s all a façade; a bit too forced. Sebastian walks closer and tries to listen in on the conversation going on around Kurt. Rachel rambles on about all important _Funny Girl_ issues. Blaine has gained a few pounds. The blond boy with the big lips says something about _Star Wars_ fanfiction. This inane jabber bounces back and forth, and not a single person cares that Kurt hasn’t contributed to the conversation. He floats along, muttering here and there, nodding when it’s expected, but otherwise he’s locked inside his own head.

Sebastian knows a few things about the way Kurt reacts to things that bother him (having been one of those things for so many years), and one of them is that he tends to distance himself, but it kills Sebastian that not one of his friends has even looked Kurt in the eyes this entire time and ask him if he’s okay, or…or something. Someone should _do_ something. Sebastian isn’t sure what either, and to be fair maybe his friends don’t know what Kurt needs, but he doesn’t need this…whatever it is. Surrounded by so many self-involved people that don’t see how Kurt’s hand trembles where it’s wrapped around his coffee cup, or how his head pops up when someone in the distance hails a taxi or calls across the street.

Sebastian wants to reach out to Kurt. He wants to make a statement, open the door that’s been closed between them for so long. He gets an idea and immediately cringes. It’s not a bad idea. It’s actually a good idea, if Sebastian was the corny, schmoopy, romantic type. He’s not…he knows he’s not. He runs away from any kind of sentiment. FTD commercials make him want to puke. But he could be the hopeless romantic if that’s what Kurt needs. Sebastian sighs and pushes a hand through his hair, watching as the small mob enters the school with Kurt suspended in its midst, the nucleus of the group but oddly an outsider; the world of petty drama going on around him while he quietly clings to sanity.

Sebastian looks around and spots a flower shop across the street from the school. He hems and haws, but remembering that he swore at the hospital that he isn’t above doing anything for Kurt now that he has a second chance, he finally decides to put his plan into action.

***

The roses start to arrive in the middle of Kurt’s classes.

The first one shows up halfway through Cassie July’s dance class. A student taps Kurt on the shoulder mid-tango and hands him a perfect white rose. Kurt’s mouth drops, and Cassie rolls her eyes when she sees it.

“For Christ’s sake, Hummel,” she barks as she tries to get the class of swooning girls and their aggravated partners back on track. “You have three classes with your fiancé. Are the roses really necessary?”

“I don’t have any classes with him today,” Kurt informs his dance teacher coyly. She scoffs with a sarcastic smirk on her face, turning away so she doesn’t have to witness Kurt fawning over his precious flower.

Kurt smiles, sniffing the perfect white rose before noticing a card dangling from a gold cord around the stem. Kurt picks it up between careful fingers and reads it.

_“There is something you must always remember…”_

Kurt furrows his brow as he reads it again, disappointed that the florist cut off the message.

That disappointment morphs into excitement when the second rose arrives in the middle of his Intro to Musical Theater lecture.

This rose is red; a bud that is days away from opening. He blushes as envious girls shoot him jealous looks. He finds the second card and reads it, eager for another piece of the puzzle.

_“You are braver than you believe…”_

Kurt gasps at the sentiment. He didn’t think of himself as particularly brave when he ran to help the man being beaten in that dark alley. It just felt like the human thing to do. But everyone he loves had been lecturing him about ‘being brave’ as if it is a bad thing; he knows it comes from a place of fear and caring, a place of love that doesn’t always express itself the way it should.

It still hurts.

When the third rose arrives, Kurt spins around beside his seat, trying to find Blaine in the gathering crowd. Kurt knows that Blaine is obviously dropping the roses off and then racing to get to class, but he wants a glimpse of him to hold on to. He doesn’t see his fiancé’s familiar head of gelled hair anywhere.

He sighs at his lavender rose, immediately searching out the card.

_“…stronger than you seem…”_

Kurt finally begins to recognize the passage, and groans to himself.

“Winnie-the-Pooh?” he mutters with a huge grin on his face. He rolls his eyes, but bites his lip, bouncing in his seat. Maybe it is a little campy, but Kurt can forgive campy since Blaine is trying so hard.

Kurt doesn’t want to seem greedy, but he secretly hopes that another rose will arrive.

And it does. A pink rose, right at the beginning of his individual voice training lesson.

Kurt knows what the card will say even before he reads it.

_“…and smarter than you think.”_

Kurt’s heart swells, honestly elated for the first time since he’s left the hospital.

After school he’ll see Blaine, and he’ll make sure to thank him properly.

***

Blaine is late, and Kurt waits outside with his colorful bouquet clutched to his chest. Kurt bends down and sniffs the flowers, letting their sweet scent fill his nose and tickle his head. Blaine can be prone to large, sometimes uncomfortable displays, but this…this was what Kurt needed; a constant stream of support; something special, something private, something thoughtful.

Something for the two of them to share.

When Blaine finally walks through the glass doors, Kurt attacks him with abandon, wrapping his arms around him and pecking kisses all over his face.

“Well hello to you, too,” Blaine chuckles through the veil of kisses. “What’s gotten into you?”

“What’s gotten into me?” Kurt says breathlessly. “Oh, just the greatest fiancé in the world showering me with roses all day, that’s what.”

Blaine pulls back from Kurt enough to look into his eyes.

“What…”

“Oh, don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about,” Kurt says, smacking Blaine lightly on the shoulder. “The gig is up. I know it was you. I mean…Winnie-the-Pooh, Blaine? You really are sappy.”

Blaine looks at Kurt and notices for the first time the roses clutched in his grasp.

“I…they’re beautiful, Kurt,” Blaine stutters, his hazel eyes going dark with confusion, “but I didn’t send them.”

Kurt pulls out of Blaine’s arms completely, stepping back, thoroughly unamused.

“I wish I had sent them,” Blaine says, trying to find a way back into Kurt’s arms again.

Blaine doesn’t have another chance to comment. Rachel joins them and immediately monopolizes the conversation with furious commentary about how unfair Carmen Tibideaux is acting lately. Sam shows up, seemingly from nowhere with Artie in tow, and they start off again. Blaine seems to forget the mysterious roses altogether as he gets wrapped up in the saga of Artie’s newfound popularity at his own school. Kurt sighs down at his roses, once again feeling completely alone.

They trundle along, and Kurt doesn’t bother to watch where he’s going. Why should he, when Blaine and Rachel and Sam and Artie and eventually Mercedes will shuffle him around to the loft, or the diner, or wherever else they want to go.

“Watch it!” Rachel hisses as a tall stranger pushes his way into their group, scattering everyone for a second. The oddly familiar looking man in an ankle length, dark grey cashmere coat brushes past Kurt, pausing long enough to hand Kurt another rose and bustle away into the oncoming crowd. Blaine dotes over a flummoxed Rachel while Sam gives Artie a once over for any damages, leaving Kurt to turn and lock eyes with the stranger, who isn’t a stranger at all.

“Sebastian?” Kurt mutters at the man with the crooked yet sympathetic smile who gives him a subtle wave before hopping on the nearest bus stopped and before Kurt knows it, Sebastian is gone.

Kurt looks down at the orange rose in his grasp, a card hanging from a thin, gold cord, just like the rest, and it clicks. Sebastian sent the roses, all of the roses, but Kurt doesn’t know why. Why would Sebastian spend the day sending him roses?

He fumbles for the card, reading the quote over and over.

The line on the card solves part of the riddle, and even though he’s thoroughly bewildered, Kurt finds himself smiling.

_“Weeds are flowers, too, once you get to know them.”_


	61. What Should I Say?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here’s a third part that started with my ‘Bash’ reaction fic 'What Would It Take?' where Sebastian hears about Kurt in the hospital and tries to go see him. It continued on to 'What Wouldn't I Do?', where Sebastian tries to find a way to show Kurt that he’s there to support him. Now Kurt wants to find out why Sebastian keeps following him. Will Sebastian jump at the opportunity to tell Kurt how he feels? (Warning for mention of Klaine)

Kurt weeds his way through the crowd, dodging the occasional preoccupied on-comer, too busy and too wrapped up in their own issues to worry about whether they trip over him or not, but with every step he takes he feels the footsteps of the man behind him as if they are his own. They keep the same pace, the same cadence, only a step or two behind. Kurt knows when he’s there without having to turn around. Kurt has gotten used to Sebastian following him most days on his way to and from school; Kurt has become so accustomed to the subtle click of Sebastian’s shoes against the pavement that he can pick out the sound amid the rumble of the bustling crowd. He doesn’t understand why Sebastian’s always there, but he has been doing it for the better part of a week. It’s confusing and reassuring all at the same time, which is why Kurt knows he needs to put a stop to it.

It doesn’t bother Kurt, but he’s begun to depend on it, that presence lingering behind him as he makes his way around the city. Sebastian is turning into Kurt’s own personal safety net, and Kurt needs to know what that means to him. If there’s one thing that Kurt is certain of, it’s that he can’t depend on Sebastian. Regardless of whatever this sudden change means, Sebastian isn’t part of his life, has never been a part of his life.

Apparently no one has told this to Sebastian yet.

Kurt slows down and then stops short. He hears a huffed curse behind his left ear and bites his lip hard to keep from laughing.

“Do you want to get some coffee?” Kurt asks without turning around. “My treat.”

There’s a moment of silence, and then a long, drawn out sigh.

“Sure,” Sebastian’s patently annoyed voice answers. Kurt chuckles to himself. He has a peculiar urge to turn around and take Sebastian’s hand, but he doesn’t. Instead, he nods to a mom and pop coffee spot across the way and they walk side-by-side, separate but together, jaywalking across the busy street. When they get to the door Sebastian reaches past Kurt and grabs the handle, opening the door wide for Kurt.

Kurt pauses for a second and looks at the door, at the hand holding it open, at the tense look on Sebastian’s face as he waits for Kurt to make up his mind and walk inside. Kurt smiles somewhat awkwardly and mutters a soft, “Thanks,” taking advantage of the chivalrous gesture before Sebastian can change his mind and let the door swing shut in his face.

They don’t speak while they stand in line, and Sebastian doesn’t look at Kurt, which Kurt finds baffling. Kurt really wants answers, but he doesn’t pry. He can tell Sebastian feels uncomfortable. He stands rigidly, moves stiffly as they advance towards the counter, his entire body taut as if he’s preparing for a fight. Kurt can tell by the anxious glances of a few customers near them that Sebastian’s intense posture comes across as at least a little intimidating, but Kurt finds it unexpectedly endearing. This guarded attitude is such a departure from the cocky Sebastian that Kurt met at the Lima Bean, the privileged prep school boy, always quick with his wit, a step ahead of everyone with regard to his nefarious plans. This Sebastian standing beside Kurt in line has none of those old snarky walls in place. This Sebastian is holding back, and for the first time ever Kurt is worried about the possibility of hurting his feelings.

They get their coffees and find a table with low, plush armchairs situated near the window. Reclining in the comfortable chair seems too informal for this particular conversation, so Kurt struggles to sit up straight, poised on the slanted edge. His legs knock together at the knees with the strain of keeping his body upright.

Why can’t anything be easy?

Sebastian twirls his paper coffee cup in his hands, staring down at the white plastic lid, waiting.

Quite obviously waiting, so Kurt decides to cut to the chase.

“Why do you keep following me?” he asks.

Now it’s his turn to wait.

Sebastian sighs and stops twirling his cup.

“Because I want to make sure you’re alright.”

Kurt’s first instinct is to bring up the fact that Sebastian doesn’t need to make sure he’s alright because they’re not technically friends, but the tight set of Sebastian’s mouth, the way his eyes stay glued to his cup and the table and anything that will keep him from looking into Kurt’s eyes, changes his mind.

“Don’t worry about me,” Kurt says, waving a hand in front of his face as if that simple dismissive movement can wipe away all of Sebastian’s concerns. “I have more than my fair share of people keeping an eye on me.”

“Yeah,” Sebastian says around a wry chuckle. “I’ve seen how concerned they are. By the way, how is Blaine handling the ‘Freshman Fifteen’? How is Rachel dealing with the boredom of getting the one thing she’s always wanted? And what about those Wookie orgies I’ve heard so much about?”

Kurt doesn’t know whether to run to his friends’ defense or to laugh at Sebastian’s insane accuracy. On the one hand, Sebastian just insulted his closest friends and his fiancé, and accurate or not he really doesn’t have any right. Sebastian isn’t a part of Kurt’s inner circle. In fact, this whole conversation bordered on the ridiculous considering everything Sebastian has ever done to Kurt. Where did he get off being so judgmental about people who had stood by Kurt’s side for years?

On the other hand, another part of Kurt can’t help but agree. He expected to be handled with kid gloves when he got out of the hospital, but what he didn’t expect was for everyone to get over it so quickly and pretty much ignore him, hoping that whatever problem still remained with Kurt would resolve itself.

Kurt is a big boy. He doesn’t need someone to hold his hand everywhere he goes, but it would be nice if once in a while someone asked him what he needed.

Blaine’s reaction to the whole situation confounds Kurt the most; Blaine who’s been bullied and who had the shit beaten out of him for being gay. For heaven’s sake, he had to change schools because of it. Blaine should understand on a deeper level than anyone the pain that Kurt is still going through.

Blaine had been moody and emotional for a couple of days. He slept with Kurt in his bed at the hospital. He sang to him. He held his hand.

Now, nothing. Kurt’s scars hadn’t yet faded and the main focus in their lives had veered back to worrying about Blaine’s weight gain and other ever blooming aspects of his dwindling self-esteem.

The pain hasn’t gone away yet for Kurt, but it’s definitely done for Blaine.

A year after Blaine was beaten at Sadie Hawkins he almost didn’t have the courage to join Kurt at Prom.

Is Kurt expected to get over being put in the hospital by bullies in a few short weeks?

“They’re doing their best,” is all Kurt can come up with to say. It might not be entirely true, but it is noncommittal on his part. He feels no need to condemn or condone the actions of his friends to Sebastian.

“Really?” Sebastian replies, his voice dripping enough sarcasm in that single word to freeze the whole of the Hudson River.

Kurt runs a hand through his hair. He didn’t invite Sebastian out for coffee to fight, and if he has to be honest with himself he doesn’t have the energy to defend people he’s in no mood to defend.

“Look, tearing down my friends for what you perceive as faults does not explain why you feel the need to follow me around all over like a creeper, making sure I’m alright.”

Kurt doesn’t mean to snap, but he doesn’t think it will matter. Sebastian is pretty much bulletproof in Kurt’s eyes, so he indulges in doling out a pot shot of his own.

He immediately regrets it when he sees Sebastian flinch; barely noticeable, mostly around his eyes.

Years ago that would have felt like a victory.

Right now it feels hollow.

Sebastian sighs again, and Kurt thinks he’s about to get up and leave, but instead he looks up from his cup, fixing Kurt with green eyes that seem pleading and slightly lost.

He swallows hard before he begins.

“Kurt, I’ve been living fine without you,” he starts. “Not seeing you every day, not really talking to you, I’ve been okay. Great actually.”

“Wow,” Kurt deadpans, feeling strangely slighted. “Thanks.”

Sebastian shakes his head, reconfiguring his thoughts, afraid of failing right out of the gate.

“That’s because I knew you were safe,” he continues quickly. “I thought you were happy, and if I believed that I could be content, even if you and I…” Sebastian stops; the thoughts he contemplates showing clear on his face, and Kurt catches them. His jaw drops, the color escaping his face before Sebastian begins again. “…even if you and I couldn’t be together. But when I got that text from Blaine, when I found out you’d been hurt…my entire world stopped spinning.”

Kurt holds his breath, unable to think of a word to say.

“Kurt,” Sebastian says more softly, “I don’t…this isn’t easy…”

Sebastian grunts in frustration, hitting the table with his fist and pushing back in his chair.

This time Kurt leans forward and takes Sebastian’s hand where it rests next to his cup. Sebastian’s wary eyes stare at Kurt’s hand in his, holding onto him lightly. Sebastian sits up straight and breathes in, trying to steady every urge his body has – to break free and leave, to hold Kurt’s hand tighter, to pull him close.

He decides to go for broke and finish what he has to say, because if he doesn’t when he has this chance, he’ll find a thousand reasons not to tell him ever.

“So many times…” Sebastian begins again in a tone Kurt has never heard from him before. It’s reserved and emotional; vaguely affectionate. “I wanted to tell you so many times exactly how I felt. I wanted to apologize for being an ass. I wanted to beg you to give me a chance.”

“Why didn’t you?” Kurt asks before he can lose his nerve.

Sebastian smiles sadly, daring to rub his thumb along Kurt’s knuckles. Kurt stiffens, feeling that the polite thing to do would be to pull away, not to lead Sebastian on especially when he seems so vulnerable, but he doesn’t want to. For reasons he can’t explain, he wants to hold on longer.

“Because I was an asshole to you,” Sebastian says, more to himself than to Kurt. “Because I didn’t deserve a chance after the way I treated you. Because you were happy, and as much as I hated, I hated, _I hated_ that you were happy with Blaine and not with me, I didn’t want to destroy what you have.”

Kurt waits to see if there’s more, but Sebastian clenches his teeth, not as if he’s finished, but as if he’s holding back what else he has to say.

“So, why tell me now?” Kurt shrugs. “Why after I have a fiancé, plans to be married? Why after all this time?”

Sebastian hesitates; the fact that Kurt hasn’t pulled his hand from his grasp gives him strength, but try as he might he can’t convince his brain – his cynical, sardonic brain – to say what he needs to say, so he closes his eyes and lets his heart take over.

“There was a second when I imagined what could happen if you pull that fucking messed up stunt again, you run to someone’s rescue, only the next time the guys in the alley have a knife or a gun and they kill you, and Kurt, something inside me…died.”

Sebastian shook his head and Kurt realizes he’s also shaking away tears. He shifts back and Kurt holds his hand tight, afraid he might pull it away.

“I’m a coward,” Sebastian admits. “All these years I’ve been nothing but a fucking coward. I spent my life trying not to think about you, and when I couldn’t stop, I would come all the way down here just to bump into you and I risked nothing. Nothing at all. That’s the fucked up way I treat someone I care about. But you…” Sebastian squeezes Kurt’s hand tighter, “…you risked everything for someone you didn’t even know. So if I couldn’t at least make sure that you were okay, if I couldn’t come here and tell you how I felt, then I would hate myself even more than I do now, every day for the rest of my life.”

Sebastian slowly slips his hand out of Kurt’s, and Kurt lets him go. Kurt tries to come up with something appropriate to say, but the words that spring to mind sound empty and platitudinous. Sebastian takes a sip of his coffee for the first time since they sat down and he grimaces.

It’s bitter on his tongue and nearly ice cold.

Kurt looks down at his own coffee cup and pushes it aside.

“I don’t know what to say,” Kurt says honestly.

Sebastian props his elbows on the table and drops his head in his hands.

“Then don’t say anything. Really. I didn’t mean to dump all my shit in your lap like this, and the last thing I want is for you to try and come up with a way to let me down easy.”

Kurt drops back in his chair.

That’s exactly what he was trying to do, but not for the reasons Sebastian must think, but if Kurt can’t explain it to himself, how is he going to explain it to Sebastian?

“Look,” Kurt says, sitting back up in his chair, “how about this. What if we sort of start over again…as friends this time?”

Sebastian doesn’t look up from where he has his head cradled in his hands, but groans loudly. Kurt reaches across the table and smacks him hard on the arm, laughing when Sebastian’s arm falls out from under him and his head drops forward, hitting the table.

“Ow! Christ, Hummel!” Sebastian hisses, rubbing his forehead with his fingers. “If that’s how you treat your friends, I think I’ll pass.” But Sebastian is laughing, and when he looks at Kurt, he seems relaxed, like the weight of several years has been lifted from his shoulders.

“Come on,” Kurt says, standing from the table and grabbing his cup, “I’m already late for class.”

“Oh, I’m sure you can miss clown class or whatever you’ve got going.”

Sebastian stands and grabs his cup as well. They pass by a trash can on their way out the door. Kurt pitches his undrunk coffee, but Sebastian keeps his, and Kurt grins. Sebastian holds the door open for Kurt again and they walk out onto the sidewalk, joining the crowd that swarms past.

“Are you going to keep following me around?” Kurt asks.

Sebastian shrugs, not meeting Kurt’s eyes.

“Maybe,” Sebastian says.

“You know you don’t have to,” Kurt says, stopping at the corner just as the light turns red. “I’ll be fine.”

“Maybe I’m not doing it for you.” Sebastian presses the button for the light repeatedly, as if punching it over and over will make it change quicker. “Maybe I’m doing it for me.”

Kurt nods. They cross against the light when a path clears and a swath of people make a break for the opposite side of the street.

“Okay,” Kurt says. “Then instead why don’t we walk together, since that seems like something friends would do. This way people won’t think you’re some kind of crazed stalker.”

Sebastian rolls his eyes dramatically.

“God, you’re clingy,” Sebastian teases, but when he sees NYADA looming ahead of him, he frowns slightly. “But if you really want to, I guess we can.”

“I would consider it a huge personal favor,” Kurt teases back, shaking his head. He turns to the man looming beside him and Kurt considers the proper protocol for leaving now that Sebastian has revealed so much of himself. Should Kurt offer him a handshake? A hug? A pat on the back? Perform some complicated fist bump?

“Give me your phone,” Sebastian says abruptly. Kurt startles but hands it over, burning with curiosity.

Sebastian takes the phone and starts punching in numbers. Kurt smirks at how long he takes.

“So, was this all just a ploy to get me to let you borrow my phone?” Kurt quips. Sebastian turns the phone back to him and Kurt takes it.

“That’s my phone number,” Sebastian says as Kurt reads the information on the screen, “my email, and the address to my apartment uptown. If you need anything…”

Sebastian lets the words drift away, but Kurt finishes for him.

“I’ll call. I promise.”

“Yeah,” Sebastian says for lack of anything better. He backs away with a small wave.

“See ya later, Hummel,” he says, and turns quickly on his heel.

Kurt watches Sebastian walk away until he’s just another head of brown hair blending into the crowd, then looks back down at the screen, reading the information one more time before he locks his phone and puts it in his pocket. He heads to class and tries his best to push their conversation aside so he can concentrate on being a NYADA student.

***

Kurt works his way from his first class through to his last class completely on autopilot. He can’t stop his mind from wandering back to his conversation with Sebastian. Everything he said replays in his mind like the scene of a play. He can’t erase the memory of the emotions on Sebastian’s face, how foreign and unsettling they were; or the way his voice almost cracked when he confessed to being an ass, to being scared…

…to wanting a chance with Kurt.

Kurt tries to replace those thoughts with images of Blaine. He tries to remember the last time he saw a similar look on Blaine’s face, or the last time he heard that same desperate crack in his voice that comes with the thought of losing the one thing you want the most.

Aside from his recent trip to the hospital, Kurt’s mind comes up completely blank.

Kurt can possibly admit it was there the day Blaine proposed to him, on the spiral staircase at Dalton, but Kurt often felt that speech sounded perfectly practiced, like he had said it hundreds of times to himself in the mirror, or maybe even in front of Sam, before he recited it to Kurt.

His morning with Sebastian occupies his thoughts all day long – sitting on the sofa watching _The Notebook_ with Blaine, eating Thai takeout for dinner, listening to Rachel and Mercedes while they jabber on about Mercedes’s burgeoning relationship with Sam. Nothing that goes on in the loft around him is enough of a distraction to wipe it away.

Lying in bed with Blaine, Kurt feels tremendously and overwhelmingly guilty because his mind has stopped focusing on all the words Sebastian said and has zeroed in entirely on the comforting warmth of Sebastian’s hand holding his.

“Blaine,” Kurt says, stroking down his fiance’s back with his fingertips while he continues to sort through things in his mind, “what did you think when you heard I was in the hospital?”

“I didn’t know what to think,” Blaine answers quietly. “I didn’t know what had happened to you, and they wouldn’t tell me anything...”

“No,” Kurt interrupts gently. “I mean, how did you feel? Were you scared, were you angry, were you frightened?”

Blaine lies silently with his head on Kurt’s chest, mulling over his feelings in his mind.

“Well, I was scared,” he says, raising a hand to trace patterns over Kurt’s t-shirt lightly with his nails. “I didn’t want anything to happen to you. I mean, I love you. You’re such a huge part of my life. I can’t picture a future without you.” Blaine shakes his head, banishing the memory of sitting by Kurt’s hospital bed, holding his hand, hating himself, hating the world for not leaving them in peace. “Everything would change.” Blaine sniffles, turning his face up to look at Kurt’s; his eyes wet with new, unshed tears. “I don’t think I could stay in New York without you. It would remind me too much of you. It would tear me apart if anything like that happened to you again.”

Blaine’s voice wavers, and Kurt’s heart sinks for him. He holds him close and rocks him gently.

“Alright,” Kurt murmurs soothingly. “Shhhh. It’s alright. Everything’s going to be okay.”

He kisses Blaine’s curls and hugs him tight until the sniffles die down and the few tears that dampen his shirt dry away. Blaine drifts to sleep in Kurt’s arms, but Kurt stays awake, listening to Blaine breathe in the dark, staring up at the ceiling, finally putting his jumbled thoughts in order.

Kurt likes Blaine’s answer. It’s a good answer. It’s the answer Kurt expected.

It just wasn’t as good as Sebastian’s.


	62. What Do I Want?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so apparently I lied. This is going to be a five part story, not a four part story, but you guys don’t mind, right? (Please say you don’t mind…) Anyway, so here’s my continuation in what I call my ‘What…? series’ This takes place after 'What Should I Say?' This one is heavily influenced by the recent Glee episode ‘5X16 Tested’ so warning for spoilers. Kurt and Sebastian spend more time together, and Kurt’s starting to get a bit confused by his feelings, especially considering recent emotional turns of events with regard to Blaine. Warnings for talk of Klaine and Blaine, but I make up for it with what I think is a really cool bo fighting scene at the end.

“So, what do you study that gives you all this free time to wander the city during the day?” Kurt asks, pulling apart his cronut and handing Sebastian half. Kurt originally felt guilty indulging in the one treat that had started Blaine on his landslide to his new found obsession with food, but he figures what Blaine doesn’t know about his occasional food infidelities won’t hurt him. Besides, better to snack behind Blaine’s back then to rub it in his face.

Sebastian takes a bite of the still warm pastry and moans softly, chewing thoroughly before he answers.

This has become their ritual – coffee and cronuts on the way to NYADA. When they started walking together in the mornings they could only meet two days a week. Blaine struggled and struggled with his weight problem, with feelings of inadequacy and failure; but most of all with the idea of the beautiful, tortured, and slightly broken boy he had fallen head over heels for blossoming into a stronger, sexier, fiercely independent man. One evening he broke down into tears and told Kurt that he couldn’t stand himself; couldn’t cope with the person he had turned into, living in constant fear that one day Kurt would wake up and realize he didn’t love him anymore.

Kurt felt the weight of that confession like a rock in his stomach. He reassured Blaine that he would always love him, but his words of acceptance and affection didn’t seem to work the magic he had hoped. So from that moment on Kurt devoted himself to helping his fiancé lose weight which meant early morning jogs three days a week, but sometimes the dark alleys they would cut through brought back difficult memories for Kurt, and he signed them up for memberships to a local gym instead.

Things went fine in the beginning. Better than fine. Even though Blaine is usually the first one up to make Kurt breakfast, Kurt is really the consummate morning person in the relationship, especially when it comes to waking up before five in the morning. Kurt would roll Blaine out of bed, slap him into his tank top and sweats, and drag him down to Crunch Fitness for morning cardio.

Kurt took boxing lessons with Blaine, letting Blaine help him with his punches and his stance. In turn, Blaine joined Kurt for a spin class. They would pretend they were racing through Central Park, and tried to slap each other surreptitiously when the instructor wasn’t watching, which she always was, and she scowled at them with a tiny smile on her lips. One day out of the week they dedicated to the machines and weights - walking side-by-side on the treadmills, spotting each other at the bench.

Their mornings together at the gym were reminiscent of being teenaged lovebirds back at McKinley (or Dalton) again. There was no stress, no insecurities (believe it or not). It was fun and carefree. Kurt would look at Blaine as he attacked the punching bag, focused, determined, fitter and trimmer than he had ever seen him and think, “There he is. That’s the Blaine I fell in love with.”

Kurt felt happy. He had finally found the balance he longed for so much. He had the man of his dreams back from the dark void of depression, had made an amazing new friend to boot, and the problems he and Blaine did have were quickly on the mend because they were starting anew – open and honest, with lots of genuine conversation and intimate moments together.

That is until they started going to the gym a few afternoons after school.

The gym at four in the afternoon when it’s nearly jam-packed is a different universe compared to the gym at five in the morning when it’s empty and only a handful of tired, dedicated people show up to run on the treadmill and generally ignore everyone else around them.

Their membership gave them access to a personal trainer, and Kurt decided to take advantage of it, needing some guidance since he wanted to keep his leaner physique and not suddenly bulk up the way he feared he might be. Guns were fine, but he wanted to keep his armory low-key.

Seth, his trainer, was a sweet, intelligent, flattering man, who was passionate about his job and liked to flirt; but even without a ring on his finger Seth wasn’t really Kurt’s type. Kurt didn’t pay much attention to his flirting. He was polite and attentive and made it clear during their first session together that he had a fiancé and Seth got the hint. From then on out they had a professional trainer/trainee relationship. Seth eventually handed Kurt over to George, a trainer who worked with a few members from the New York City Ballet Company, and Kurt found out they had a lot in common.

It was nice talking to people with similar interests outside of school and the loft. He was beginning to feel like a shut-in with regard to his social circles, like he was locked into two sects and would never be able to function in the real world. He never thought that making new friends would be a problem, especially not now that he and Blaine had gone through so many stages of personal growth.

But Blaine became sullen and moody and competitive all over again. It’s not that Blaine didn’t get his own fair share of attention, but the harem of admirers that Kurt had collected Blaine found hard to stomach. They fought more and more, and Blaine protested by being literally immoveable when the alarm went off at four until the morning workouts stopped altogether and the cronuts came back. In the end Kurt and Blaine decided that it would be better if they went to the gym separately – Kurt by himself when he found the time, and Blaine with Sam in tow to keep him on track.

In the meantime, Kurt had to go back to the start; searching for the balance, peace, and happiness he had lost.

He started walking with Sebastian more and more, and when he did he realized how much he had missed it.

“I’m actually double-majoring in corporate finance and forensic accounting," Sebastian replies when he swallows his bite. "Some of my classes are independent study and the rest of them are in the afternoon."

Kurt’s fingers stop where they dangle a piece of pastry in front of his lips.

“Wow,” Kurt says with genuine awe. “That sounds fascinating…and hard. Shouldn’t you be studying, like, all the time?”

“No, not really.” Sebastian finishes off his cronut and sucks the glaze off his fingertips. Kurt’s eyes go wide and he turns away, focusing on the sidewalk ahead of them, on his Docs as his feet roll across the dirty pavement to keep from staring at Sebastian's lips. “I’m ahead in all my classes. In fact, I’m closer to being considered a sophomore than a freshman at the moment.”

“How did you swing that?” Kurt mumbles from behind his hand as he chews the last bit of his cronut.

“A lot of hard work.” Sebastian shrugs, sounding surprisingly humble. “I’ve been working towards it since my junior year of high school. I took online courses over the summers, got my gen eds out of the way, took a few core classes, got credit for some higher level electives I took at Dalton, and interned over the interim break.”

“Uh, okay. Color me impressed.” Kurt shakes his head, trying to fit the picture of this hardworking, ambitious man with the wise ass that made his life miserable so many times.

“Why?” Sebastian side-eyes Kurt, bumping him with his shoulder. “Did you think I was just a pretty face and a tight ass?”

Kurt rolls his eyes and bumps Sebastian back.

“I guess I didn’t think you’d be working on the right side of the justice system,” Kurt teases.

“Well, I can’t spend all of my time running around like a cartoon villain, causing all sorts of comical mayhem everywhere I go.”

Kurt chuckles, biting it back when he notices Sebastian look at him and smile – not his usual crooked smirk; but the soft, vulnerable curl of his lips that Kurt rarely gets the privilege to see, and Kurt realizes he might have been flirting. He can’t help it though. He’s so comfortable around Sebastian. He feels freer talking to Sebastian. He knows that whatever he says to Sebastian will stay between the two of them. Kurt’s successes or fears or even his anger won’t tear apart Sebastian’s self-esteem or completely derail his life. Most important of all, Sebastian doesn’t judge, which took some getting used to, all things considered.

They cross the street in silence, Kurt draining what’s left of his coffee and pitching the cup into a trashcan outside the doors of the school. Sebastian rolls up his sleeve and looks at his watch, squinting down to read the face.

“Is it just me, or are we here earlier than normal?” Sebastian asks. He holds the door open for Kurt who steps inside, and Sebastian follows, holding on to every opportunity he gets to talk to Kurt before he needs to leave and take the lonely train ride to the NYU campus.

“Yeah, well, I signed up for an extra stage combat lesson to hone my bo staff skills,” Kurt says, leading Sebastian through the halls.

“I thought you took stage combat with Blaine,” Sebastian recalls from an earlier conversation.

“The last time we sparred in class together, he tried to lobotomize me,” Kurt explains. “Besides, it’s not an official class, per se.”

By the time they arrive to the correct classroom it’s already full of students hanging around the perimeter, talking and whispering, or lightly sparring, working on footwork and switching between holds. Kurt glances up at the clock on the wall.

“Good,” he says, dropping his bag in an unoccupied corner and unbuttoning his peacoat, “I’ve still got a few minutes.”

Sebastian watches Kurt take off his coat and lay it out carefully over his messenger bag. He unzips his hoodie, peeling it down his arms and Sebastian sucks in a breath at the sight of the tight tank top underneath – ribbed and black and covering precious little in comparison to the clothes Kurt usually wears, which might be tight as sin but show no skin.

And Kurt’s skin – that pale, creamy, flawless skin – makes Sebastian’s tongue tingle and his mouth water.

Kurt’s eyes flick up just as Sebastian has the good sense to look away, as luck would have it, in the direction of two students heading their way, dressed in similar workout clothes as Kurt, holding a bo staff in hand and wearing matching wolfish grins.

“Hello, Kurt,” the first man says, his words curling with the hint of a Colombian accent. “Care to introduce us to your yummy friend?”

Kurt looks between the two men blocking their path and smiles politely – pink lips stretched tight over white teeth with no sincerity.

Kurt turns to Sebastian and gestures to the two students, starting with the tanned-skin man who first spoke.

“Sebastian,” he says, “this is Carlos and Lalo. Lalo, Carlos, this is Sebastian.”

Sebastian looks over both men with a nod and a brief, “Hello.” Carlos is tall with a dancer’s build and extremely defined arms (though Sebastian thinks maybe Carlos is overcompensating for something through bicep curls). Lalo is much tanner than Carlos and his shaved head shows a couple of weeks’ worth of dark stubble. He turns to his companion and shares a knowing smile.

“Did you come to join our class today?” Lalo asks. “Or is Kurt giving you _private_ lessons?”

Carlos titters in a distinctly un-masculine fashion, and Kurt bites his tongue from the twenty or so comebacks lined up in his head, begging to lash out.

“Is he good enough to give lessons?” Sebastian asks. Kurt can detect that teasing Smythe tone in the undercurrent of his smooth, charming voice and Kurt sighs. Somehow he sees himself paying for bringing Sebastian to class today.

“Good? He’s the best in our class by far.” Carlos gushes dramatically.

“Is that so?” Sebastian drawls, turning to face Kurt who stares pointedly back, hands on hips, a dangerous challenge in his blue-grey eyes. “Are you going to show me how you use your stick, Hummel?” Sebastian slips off his coat to a softly murmured chorus of ooo’s and whispered catcalls, and without looking around the room Kurt can tell all eyes are on them. He turns his face up to the ceiling and groans, sweeping his head around and locking eyes with his instructor. He motions to Sebastian.

“Can I…”

“Just remember…” the severe upper classman says with an affirmative nod, “safety first, safety last, safety always.”

Kurt walks to the bo staff rack, ignoring the amused expression on Sebastian’s face as he watches him saunter by to grab the last staff.

“Crap,” Kurt mutters, looking around the room for an abandoned staff anywhere.

“Here,” Carlos rushes forward, bypassing Kurt and heading straight for Sebastian, “you can borrow mine.”

“Uh, thanks,” Sebastian says, trying to take the staff from the eager man who will simply not let go, staring up at Sebastian with adoring heart eyes.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Kurt says, wedging his bo staff between them. “Back away, Carlos.”

Kurt walks off toward the center of the room, Sebastian following close behind.

“You’ve got some interesting classmates here,” he whispers into Kurt’s ear, aware that the acoustics of the room will probably amplify any sound.

“Don’t tell me there aren’t any hopelessly smitten braniacs following you around at your school wherever you go, probably carrying your books between classes, taking notes for you, offering to do your homework assignments.”

“I plead the fifth,” Sebastian jokes, stopping a few feet from Kurt, bo staff in hand. One look at Kurt, poised to begin, and Sebastian knows he’s about to be owned, but he can at least try to put up a good fight.

“Okay, let’s work on your stance first,” Kurt says, walking behind Sebastian, manipulating arms and legs to get them where they should be. “We work with four main stances, but for now let’s just deal with one. The Front Stance. Bend your front knee, straighten your back knee, square your shoulders, and…there.”

Kurt walks back around to appraise Sebastian’s stance, and a polite applause rises around the room.

“See? They think you look good.”

“What took them so long?” Sebastian mocks, trying to hide the fact that he feels mildly self-conscious. It’s been so long since he performed anything, he can feel his arms shake with a touch of stage fright.

“It’s okay,” Kurt says softly, using their close proximity as he adjusts Sebastian’s hands on the staff as an excuse to talk to him privately. “Once we get started, you’ll forget all about them.”

Kurt smiles at Sebastian and Sebastian nods, his heart racing with every touch of Kurt’s hand, every brush of his skin against any exposed area of Kurt’s body. What should seem so innocent is quickly becoming the biggest turn on of Sebastian’s life.

“Now, we use three different holds,” Kurt instructs, sliding Sebastian’s hands over the staff. “The Normal Hold you’ll use most of the time, but widen your grip for blocking.”

“You better get used to that one,” Carlos calls out, and a spattering of giggles and snickers work their way around the room in a wave.

Sebastian’s eyes snap up, but Kurt walks into his field of vision.

“Focus on me,” he says. “Don’t worry about them. They’re not even here. It’s just you and me. Alright?”

Sebastian sighs and relaxes at the soothing sound of Kurt’s voice trying so hard to keep Sebastian grounded.

“Okay, Sifu Kurt,” Sebastian says. “What do you want me to do?”

“It would actually be Sensei Kurt,” Kurt says with a chuckle. “Bo fighting is Japanese, not Chinese.”

“Ah.” Sebastian’s legs tremble in the uncomfortable stance they are locked in, but he’s determined to stay how Kurt put him, though he realizes if he moves and breaks his stance Kurt would have to fix him again. For the sake of not re-igniting his fading hard-on he decides to stay put.

“We use five basic strikes, but I think we’ll be safe with two. The Overhead Front Strike…” Kurt says with a quick demonstration, bring the staff down over Sebastian’s head, grinning when Sebastian’s reflexes kick in and he blocks the blow, keeping his grip wide. Sebastian hears several students applaud again.

“Good job,” Kurt says, and Sebastian’s cheeks color despite his efforts not to become too affected by Kurt’s praise. “You’re going to follow that up with a 4-Point Strike.” Kurt attacks again, moving the staff up and down, then side to side, with Sebastian rushing to keep up. Sebastian manages to block all four shots, but the tip of Kurt’s bo grazes Sebastian’s forehead, ruffling his hair.

“Great,” Kurt says, standing in his own Front Stance, which looks vastly more stable than Sebastian’s at the moment. “So, why don’t you go ahead and just come at me?”

“What?” Sebastian chokes out. “Are you shitting me?”

“There’s no better way to learn than to try.”

Sebastian shakes his head, regretting getting himself into this position. He already feels the sweat rolling down his spine and he hasn’t even really moved yet.

“Lunge forward, and then return to your stance.”

“While trying to hit a moving target,” Sebastian gripes.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Kurt says, and more ooo’s travel the room.

Sebastian stutters forward once or twice, partially out of nerves but also not quite willing to bring his bo staff down on Kurt’s head, or try since he’s certain Kurt’s not about to let him land a hit. Sebastian lurches forward spasmodically, bringing the staff over his head with as much strength as he can muster. With barely any energy exerted, Kurt blocks the blow, a loud snap like a firecracker exploding reverberating around the room when the two sticks make contact. With a spin of his staff, Kurt knocks Sebastian’s out of his hands and sends it skittering across the floor.

“That’s no fair!” Sebastian whines. “You didn’t teach me that move.”

“You don’t need to know the move to defend against it,” Kurt returns sagely. “If you had drawn back your staff quicker, I wouldn’t have had time to disarm you.”

Sebastian grumbles, chasing his staff as it continues to roll, bumping it repeatedly with the toe of his shoe and sending it bouncing along. Carlos stops it with the side of his foot in order to let Sebastian catch up.

“Thanks,” Sebastian mutters, bending over to grab the wayward stick and jogs back to his sparring partner. He recreates a lopsided version of his original stance, and waits for Kurt’s instruction.

“Okay,” Kurt says, renewing his own stance. “I won’t do that again. Come at me, and I’ll block. This way you get the feel of striking something.”

Negligibly more confident after that first initial strike, he lunges at Kurt again, and again Kurt blocks with such little effort you would think he is swatting at mosquitoes and not fending off an attack. Sebastian tries the Overhead Front Strike followed by the 4 Point Strike like Kurt showed him, but when those fail Sebastian starts making up random blows, doing anything to knock Kurt off his guard, but Carlos was right – Kurt is amazing.

After a few minutes, Sebastian is bent over panting, his face red, sweat clinging to his hair, while Kurt stands perfectly composed and waits for Sebastian to recover.

“So…” Sebastian pants, “is this how you spar with Blaine? He attacks and you defend?”

The question is a relatively simple one, but as Kurt tries to think of a way to answer, it hits him. That’s not just how they spar. That pretty much describes their whole relationship.

“Not all the time,” Kurt says, knowing it’s not entirely true. There’s a catch in Kurt’s voice and Sebastian hears it. He straightens up with a deep breath to calm himself, wiping the sweat off his brow with the cuff of his long-sleeved tee.

“Why don’t we flip the script a little, and you come at me,” Sebastian suggests.

Kurt raises an eyebrow and laughs condescendingly. It’s sassy and sharp and everything that Sebastian had hoped to hear.

“You want me to attack you?” Kurt clarifies.

“Why not?” Sebastian swivels left to right, cracking his back. “I mean, don’t try to kill me, of course, but show me the full power of a Kurt Hummel onslaught.”

Kurt doesn’t move, staring at Sebastian as if he’s gone completely nuts, twirling his bo staff from hand to hand as he considers his offer.

Sebastian walks up to Kurt, leans in close and says, “You can pretend I’m Blaine.”

That is the turning point; the thing that changes his mind. Kurt isn’t a pushover, but he could never seem to take out the full measure of his anger on Blaine in class. Blaine would never be able to take it.

But Sebastian can handle it, and to top it off, he's asking for it.

Kurt eyes Sebastian as he repositions himself in front of Kurt, grinning from ear to ear with the bo staff blocking the upper half of his body. Kurt positions himself, too, and tries to concentrate. He tries to picture Blaine the last time they sparred in class, when he came at Kurt, when he tried to hurt him, or maybe just tried to embarrass him. They never discussed it so Kurt didn’t know for sure, but Kurt almost hated him for it.

Kurt twirls the staff one last time in front of him, and with not a single move to telegraph his intentions, he brings it down over his head with such force Sebastian thinks his own paltry staff will snap in half. Kurt sighs and smiles, tremendous satisfaction vibrating through his body from the backlash of the blow. It feels good, in a cathartic and nearly erotic kind of way. Kurt repeats the blow, and Sebastian is quicker to block, but he still stumbles backward. He’s tired out from the dozen or so strikes he delivered, and from the look in Kurt’s eyes Sebastian can tell he’s nowhere near done.

Kurt advances quickly. Sebastian’s muscles strain to grip the bo staff, backing away to dodge Kurt’s staff and when he can’t, simply waving the thing feebly left and right to avoid Kurt’s blows. The students in the classroom cheer, and if he could make his facial muscles do anything but tense up in anticipation of a slap across the face, Sebastian would smile, because when Sebastian looks at Kurt, Kurt looks alive. No longer caged by that prison of mediocrity they call Lima, Ohio. Kurt has found the place where he belongs. He’s in his element here. Not a punching bag at McKinley or the possessively titled but otherwise anonymous ‘Blaine’s boyfriend’ at Dalton. He is a shining star at one of the most prestigious performing art schools on the whole of the east coast…and he’s currently kicking Sebastian’s ass.

Sebastian feels his back collide with the wall and he knows he’s done for. Kurt knocks Sebastian’s knuckles, not too hard but hard enough to smart like hell, and Sebastian reflexively drops his staff. Kurt takes advantage of Sebastian’s moment of distraction and pins him, his staff pressed up against Sebastian’s neck, pushing his chin up enough to make it hard for Sebastian to breathe.

“So, what do you think of the way I handle my stick now, Smythe?” Kurt asks, panting heavily against Sebastian’s neck.

Sebastian swallows and Kurt can see his Adam’s Apple bob above the staff.

“I think you do pretty well, Hummel,” Sebastian admits. Kurt lowers his staff and passes it off to Carlos, who rushed amid the fray to collect his own dropped staff, hovering around longer than necessary to try and catch any gossip-worthy snippets of forbidden conversation.

Sebastian stares at Kurt in a way that’s both captivating and disarming with its raw heat and Kurt forces himself to turn away.

“A penny for your thoughts,” Kurt says, trying to calm the flush in his cheeks, hoping for some snarky remark to bring them back from this charged tension to something that Kurt knows how to handle.

When Kurt ventures a glance back, the heat in Sebastian’s eyes is still there, growing in intensity, raising the temperature of the air around them.

“God, Kurt, I really want to kiss you right now.”

Kurt steps back involuntarily, stumbling over his feet in the process, righting himself before he tumbles to the floor.

Kurt sees the look on Sebastian’s face change immediately, his eyes cooling, shifting left and right nervously, lips fumbling over an apology.

“Kurt, I’m sorry…I…”

“Mr. Hummel,” the instructor calls from the far corner of the classroom, “if you’re done serving your attractive friend, I would like to get started with the lesson now.”

“You’re not gay, Steve,” Lalo quips back.

“That doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate a handsome man, Lalo,” Steve returns flatly.

Sebastian steps away from the wall, still trying desperately to apologize, but Kurt grabs his arm and silences him.

“It’s okay,” Kurt says. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Are you sure?” Sebastian sighs with relief. “Because I don’t want…”

“Just…forget it,” Kurt says, shaking his head. “It’s fine. I really need to get ready for class, though, so…I’ll see you later?”

Sebastian’s entire face transforms, and all at once the man that Kurt is used to seeing, the more mature man with his boyish quick wit and patented snark, returns.

“What? Did you think an impromptu ass whooping was going to scare me away?” Sebastian winks with a click of his tongue. “You’re not getting rid of me that easy.”

Sebastian lingers a breath longer with Kurt’s hand wrapped around his arm, and then backs away, heading for the door. Kurt watches Sebastian leave, his eyes trailing him when he turns at the doorway with a crooked smile and a wave, but when he rounds the corner into the hall and disappears Kurt feels heavy, and a little hollow. He hears an exaggerated sniffing sound travel over his right ear, then behind his back to his left ear. He spins around to see a grinning Lalo shaking his head.

“What are you doing?” Kurt asks with a twinge of disgust at the thought of this man smelling him.

“Oh, I’m just curious if it’s some kind of pheromone cologne you’re wearing,” the man says, his brown eyes smiling.

“What?” Kurt repeats, still not quite sure what he’s getting at.

“Yeah,” Carlos agrees, joining them from the hall where he got the honor of the final glimpse of Sebastian before he left the building, “or are you wearing diamond encrusted undies. What is your secret that you’ve got all these hot guys wrapped around your fingers?” Carlos wiggles his fingers in front of his face for emphasis as he sashays up beside Lalo, whose arms are crossed over his muscular chest.

“Sebastian’s a friend,” Kurt says in his defense. "He's not wrapped around my finger."

“Like hell he’s not,” Lalo says, turning back toward the door as though Sebastian would pop back in at the mention of his name. “That man has it bad for you, Hummel.”

Kurt thrills and despises the way his heart falters at the thought of Sebastian wanting him. Kurt knows he does. Sebastian told him, but hearing it from someone else, someone not inclined to cloud the truth, makes it seem all the more real.

“He’s not mine,” Kurt says, with a touch of longing that he can’t hide.

“Well, then can I have him?” Carlos asks, his wide eyes hopeful. “That man can borrow my bo stick any time.”

Kurt doesn’t know where the strange possessive streak comes from, but it rears its head full force, and Kurt leans in to Carlos’s face.

“No.”


	63. What Should I Do?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so here's the fifth and final part of this 'What...?' series, and I hope you guys like it. Things come to a breaking point between Kurt and Blaine, and Kurt has a very important decision to make that could affect the rest of his life... (Warning for mention of Klaine and Blaine, Glee spoilers and speculation of further episodes, blink and you'll miss it mention of Finn.)

Kurt sits on his bed with books open and scattered around him, searching for some subject that will take his mind off of his sparring match with Sebastian. He thumbs through his homework, first reading about the history of the Old Globe Theater, then about the works of Aleksandr Pushkin, finally pulling out the big guns and re-reading a few choice chapters of _Patti LuPone: A Memoir_. He barely reads past Ms. LuPone’s mention of the murder of her grandfather when he gives up, shutting the book and abandoning it on the bed amidst the company of his textbooks and a few sheets of music – audition pieces for a few upcoming student produced musicals he wants to try out for.

Kurt shuts his eyes and groans, picturing the scene in the combat classroom, Sebastian shoved up against the wall with Kurt’s bo staff pressed beneath his chin, trapped, his chest heaving with every labored breath, beads of sweat dotting his brow, the darkness in his eyes that overwhelmed the green irises and blazed with a softly simmering fire.

The rough edge of repressed desire in his voice when he said he wanted to kiss Kurt.

That one sentence will echo in his head from now till kingdom come, Kurt is sure of it.

Kurt shakes his head, desperate to take these images and feelings and hide them away. This isn’t love, he reminds himself. He’s not falling for Sebastian Smythe. It’s simply infatuation. He’s feeling neglected and a bit rejected by his fiancé and now he’s projecting his need for physical intimacy onto Sebastian. Yes. That has to be it, Kurt thinks, trying to find relief in his epiphany. Any high school student that’s taken psych as an elective can see that this is a text book case of misplaced affection.

Kurt comes to a difficult but necessary conclusion; one that makes sense to his rational brain as it steps back and examines the big picture; but which makes his heart stop in its tracks, and then start again, limping along sluggishly as it tries to hold itself together and not shatter. He throws himself back onto his pillow and breathes out, hard and fast till his entire body feels flat and deflated, devoid and empty.

He’s going to have to stop seeing Sebastian.

Inside Kurt’s head, his brain nods approvingly, crossing its smug arms and feeling proud of itself for making such a mature decision. After all, he has a fiancé and a future with him to consider, and in the long run this is probably the best thing if he’s going to nurture his foundling relationship; the relationship he sacrificed so much to keep together, even when the pieces fall faster than he can pick them up.

So how come he wants to crawl under his covers and cry ugly, angry sobs for the rest of the week?

He plays out how he intends on telling Sebastian, what he’s going to say exactly, and his chest tightens, the pain wrapping around his body, threatening to split him in two.

Did he really have feelings for Sebastian Smythe; something other than ‘I think I’m lonely because my fiancé has problems and I need a sympathetic shoulder to cry on’ feelings?

The more he thinks about it, the more he realizes the answer might be yes.

Oh, great fucking spaghetti monster in the sky…what the hell did he do?

Kurt feels the bed dip and opens his eyes as Blaine drops down opposite him, a half-eaten bowl of microwave theater popcorn in his hands.

“Hey,” Blaine says, “can I talk to you for a minute?”

Kurt frowns at the offending snack, which he can only assume is the hapless victim of another bout of stress eating.

“Blaine,” Kurt says firmly, sitting up and pulling the bowl away, “I thought we talked about this.”

“I know,” Blaine says, sounding meek and distant. Blaine runs his hand down the leg of his jeans and Kurt cringes, reaching on his bedside table for a wet wipe.

“So, do you want to tell me what’s up?” Kurt says. “Because the Blaine Anderson I know wouldn’t butter a pair of $300 retro distressed jeans.”

Blaine wrings the wet wipe in his hands, and then runs it over his leg, trying ineffectively to wipe up the greasy trail. He balls the wipe up and pitches it in the trash, and Kurt knows Blaine is thinking, buying himself time.

“Blaine?”

Blaine settles his hands on his knees and takes a deep breath.

“I want you to end your relationship with Sebastian,” he says bluntly.

Kurt sits up straighter, setting the bowl of popcorn down on the floor beside him and turning his body to face his fiancé full-on.

“Excuse me?” Kurt says, not sure he heard Blaine right, because Blaine would not have the gall to tell Kurt to dump _another_ friend…not now…not this time.

“I don’t want you spending so much time with Sebastian anymore,” Blaine says again, more confidently than he did the first time.

Kurt stares dumbly, mouth hanging slightly open, stunned into silence, trying to find a way to put into words the exasperation rising within him.

Grasping for his thoughts he comes up with the only thing that needs to be said.

“No.”

Blaine drops his head in frustration.

“I don’t believe you, Blaine!” Kurt says, whispering hoarsely so as not to announce to the whole loft that they are once again fighting. “What gives you the right to tell me to get rid of a friend, a good friend, who used to be your friend if you remember!”

“Yeah, and if I remember correctly you didn’t like the friendship I had with him either,” Blaine bites back.

“You’re right,” Kurt agrees with a vehement nod. “I didn’t. But I didn’t ask you to stop being friends with him, and no amount of me being upset over it or telling you I felt uncomfortable about it made you stop. So why do you get to do this to me?”

Blaine’s mouth is tight, his entire face locked down around words he’s fighting with himself to say.

“Because I wasn’t dating him!” Blaine blurts out, no longer concerned with who in the loft hears.

Kurt’s mouth drops open wider. From the living room Kurt can hear an audible dual gasp from Rachel and Mercedes who have been quietly sitting on the sofa watching _Mamma Mia!._

“Okay, psycho!” Kurt says, putting his arms up in front of him as if he can physically block himself from Blaine’s remark. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about him walking you to school every morning. I’m talking about you sharing cronuts and coffee, and all your laughing and flirting in the hallways at school, not to mention your little display during combat class.”

Kurt shakes his head in disbelief, closing his eyes so he doesn’t have to look at the now insufferable, ridiculously enraged glower on Blaine’s face.

“What?” Blaine retorts when a shocked Kurt doesn’t deny his accusations. “You think I wouldn’t find out? Are you forgetting about the gossip chain at NYADA, Kurt? I didn’t have to see you with my own eyes. Everyone’s talking about it.”

Kurt’s face inflames as he gears up to defend himself even though he recognizes the sliver of hypocrisy in doing so. There is the teeny-tiniest nugget of truth to what Blaine said. Kurt did flirt with Sebastian, but that’s all – harmless flirting. No more or less than what Blaine does when Sam gives him piggy-back rides around the city, or when he twerked with Tina, or when he eye-fucked some rando during Coach Sylvester’s aerobics class at _23 Hour Fitness_ , if the rumor mill can be believed.

Well, if second-hand information is good enough for Blaine, it’s good enough for Kurt.

“Blaine,” Kurt says, attempting to stay calm while on the verge of a Defcon 1 level meltdown, “I have given up so many friends for you. Every time you lapse into crazy possessive Blainezilla mode, a member of my social circle heads for the hills. By the time we get married, I won’t have a single friend left.”

“That’s not true,” Blaine grouses, counting off on his fingers. “You have Rachel and Santana and…”

“Well, if I trade in Rachel and Santana, can I keep Sebastian?” Kurt jeers petulantly. From the living room, a disgruntled Rachel yells, “Hey!”

Kurt rolls his eyes. Nothing in his life is private or sacred.

“Now you’re being childish,” Blaine argues, “and unoriginal. Wasn’t that from _Friends_?”

Kurt hides his head in his hands, searching out comfort in the meager dark.

“You’re not getting it.” Kurt laughs at the absurdity, because a minute ago Kurt was thinking of stopping his friendship with Sebastian for the good of his relationship with Blaine, but having Blaine come in and demand it, demand that Kurt stop being friends with the one person who seems to understand him and accepts him for who he is, is an entirely different story.

It’s a story Kurt’s not sure he wants to hear the end of.

“I can’t talk to you when you’re like this,” Kurt says finally, getting off the bed and grabbing his jacket from the hanging rack of clothes.

“Where are you going?” Blaine asks, following him as he cuts through the living room. Eyes trail him from the sofa, the volume of the television conspicuously mute, as he heads for the door.

“I’m going for a walk,” Kurt snaps. “Don’t worry. I’m pretty sure I won’t make any new friends this late at night.”

Kurt throws open the sliding door and storms out of the loft without turning around to slam it shut.

He needs out, and he needs out now; dark, deserted New York City be damned.

Kurt takes off down the street and lets his feet lead him, giving him one less thing to think about as he tries to clear his head.

His phone buzzes over and over in his pocket but he ignores it, knowing it’s Blaine with one of two agendas in mind – to continue the fight, or get Kurt to feel guilty and back down. When it buzzes for the tenth time Kurt gives in, determined to send a venomous reply to whatever Blaine has the nerve to text him and then shut off his phone for good.

But the most recent text isn’t from Blaine. It’s from Rachel.

_To Kurt:_

_Don’t you think you’re being selfish and immature about this? I mean, what is Sebastian to you really that you can’t give him up for the sake of your soul mate?_

Kurt stops walking in order to read the message again; to make sure he understands it perfectly before he unleashes his fury on Rachel Berry.

How dare she? She’s supposed to be Kurt’s friend, his best friend. Besides, what the hell does any of this have to do with her? Kurt has to wonder also where Rachel is getting her information – from tonight’s unsolicited performance, from a sanctimonious Blaine, or from the overly-efficient grapevine that branches out through the NYADA halls.

He starts composing a message, several messages, but erases them.

He doesn’t want to do anything out of anger, no matter how much she deserves it.

Instead he composes a different message and hits send.

_Meet me at the coffee shop asap…please._

Then, without waiting for an answer, he shuts off his phone.

***

Sebastian arrives miraculously before Kurt does, waiting outside, wearing his signature cashmere coat, his hands shoved in the pockets. Kurt sees him peering down the street, squinting against the street lights that fan out above him, bathing him in their copper-colored glow. He spots Kurt walking up from the subway and smiles - a crooked grin that’s a touch more sympathetic than usual.

“How the hell did you get here so fast?” Kurt launches in with a laugh, not in the mood to be pitied.

“I have my ways,” Sebastian says, being purposefully vague.

“Ahh, so would that would be the broomstick then?” Kurt walks through the door that Sebastian holds open for him.

“A level twelve warlock never reveals the true identity of his teleportation skills.”

Kurt turns in the doorway and scowls.

“Oh dear Lord,” Kurt groans in disgust. “I’m going to forget you said any of that.”

Sebastian laughs, stepping inside and letting the door shut behind him.

“Probably for the best,” he agrees. “I’m not ready to reveal that part of myself yet.”

“Oh, no!” Kurt gasps. “This is actually a thing?”

“Well, with that attitude you won’t find out anytime soon.”

Sebastian leads Kurt to the table by the window where they sat the first time they had coffee there.

“That might be a good thing.” Kurt falls into the chair and sinks in, letting it soak him up and engulf him with its worn paisley fabric.

Sebastian saunters up to the counter. The pudgy woman behind the register wearing a floral 1970s style magenta kaftan beneath an equally floral apron, sugar-and-cinnamon hair pulled into a sloppy bun on top of her head, smiles at his approach.

“The usual?” she says, already ringing up their order.

“You’re too good, Eileen,” Sebastian coos. He leans over the counter, making sultry bedroom eyes at the older woman who takes two cronuts out of the pastry case and sets them on a thick, red plate with napkins underneath.

“Oh, stop, you naughty boy,” she says, swatting at Sebastian with the back of her hand and laughing. The sound is warm, a bit raspy, and reminds Kurt of the way Carole laughs - not from just her mouth and throat, but with her whole body.

“Ow!” Sebastian stands up to avoid another swat aimed his way. “You wound me, m’lady.”

Sebastian reaches into his coat for his wallet, pulls out a twenty and sets it down on the counter.

“Yeah, right.” Eileen pulls out a tray from beneath the counter and sets it down, moving the plate on it, adding two full coffee cups and several small packets of sugar and creamer. She fishes out the twenty from beneath the tray and rings up the total on the register. “Go back to your sexy boyfriend, why don’t you?”

Kurt, sitting silently at the table by the window, listens to their banter, his stomach twisting as he waits for Sebastian to set her straight.

“What, him?” Sebastian throws a quick glance over his shoulder at Kurt sinking deeper into his chair. “Actually he’s my martial arts instructor.”

“Really?” Eileen drawls, handing Sebastian his change. Kurt can tell by the way her glimmering eyes look him over that she’s completely unconvinced.

“Yup,” Sebastian insists. “You should see him in action.” Sebastian leans further over the counter as he slips a dollar into the tip jar. “He enjoys kicking my ass.”

“I’ll bet.” Eileen turns her eyes toward Kurt and grinning for all she’s worth, throwing her head back and guffawing heartily when Kurt turns bright pink.

Sebastian laughs, too, and the pink in Kurt’s cheeks transforms into a pulsating fire engine red. Sebastian carries the tray over to Kurt, arranging the coffee cups and condiments next to the plate on the table and then slipping the tray beneath his chair. Kurt watches him with an amused smile on his lips. He snatches his coffee cup, popping off the plastic lid and taking a sniff, letting the aroma of Arabica beans fill his senses and work its way through his body, relaxing his muscles and repairing his fractured sanity. He reaches blindly for a packet of sugar, his fingers brushing Sebastian’s as the other man grabs a cup of creamer.

Kurt’s heart skips, but he overlooks it. So much has happened to him tonight; too many mixed emotions spinning off in every direction while Kurt tries to find one to latch on to, one that will lead him in the right direction.

“So, were you in the mood for a late night coffee run, or is there something you want to talk about?” Sebastian settles back into his chair, holding his cup and inhaling before he takes his first sip. Kurt takes a long look at Sebastian and notices how drawn his face is, how his eyes droop with exhaustion – all signs that Sebastian must have had a long day, too. Suddenly Kurt feels like a heel for dragging him out at this late hour. Kurt sees Sebastian’s eyebrows knit together as their eyes meet over his coffee cup.

“Look, Hummel,” he says after another sip. “You got me out here so there’s no turning back now. You might as well spill.”

Kurt shakes his head.

“I’m really sorry about this. Did I take you away from something important?”

Sebastian shrugs.

“Watching porn,” he says. He sounds rather indifferent, but Kurt huffs a bitter laugh.

“You too, huh,” Kurt says. “It must be going around.”

“I _am_ an adult human of the male species,” Sebastian says, sitting up and putting his cup on the table. “Is that what this is all about? Did you catch teen angel Blaine watching a porno?”

Kurt bounces his head back and forth in a pseudo nod.

“No…well, yes, I did. But that’s not what this is all about.”

Sebastian waits patiently. Kurt wants to tell him everything – every gritty, blasphemous detail; but much of his tale belongs to Blaine, and Kurt doesn’t feel right betraying his confidence…even if he is acting like a jackass.

“This is harder than I thought,” Kurt begins.

“What is?” Sebastian asks, talking softly, not wanting to pry.

“This…this thing I have with Blaine,” Kurt stammers.

“Thing?” Sebastian says with an uncomfortable chuckle. “You guys are engaged.”

“I know.” Kurt sighs. “It’s just so complicated…and it’s becoming more and more sordid every day.”

Sebastian waits again, drumming his fingers on the table. He gestures in frustration when Kurt doesn’t continue.

“You’re not giving me much to work with here,” Sebastian says. Kurt crosses his arms on the table and rests his chin on them, tracing the path of the fake wood grain with his eyes.

“Blaine has issues…” Kurt figures that’s a safe way to put it without divulging too much. “And I try to help, but everything I do seems to backfire.”

Kurt pauses for a moment, choosing his words carefully.

“He’s jealous of me,” Kurt says with a dry, mirthless laugh. “Of my successes, of my body…of my friends…”

Kurt’s eyes flick up to find Sebastian’s staring at him, and Sebastian understands, frowning at the thought that he managed to come between Kurt and Blaine the one time he didn’t mean to.

“Instead of being happy for me, of being proud to be with me, he wants me to give it all up.” Kurt’s gaze drifts back down to the tabletop. “I didn’t think that if Blaine loved me the way he says he loves me, that if we’re actually soul mates, that he would expect me to give up everything I’ve worked for to make him feel like he’s enough.”

Sebastian chews on the inside of his cheek, but he doesn’t say a word. He watches Kurt, taking in everything he says while at the same time half lost in his own thoughts.

“I know this sounds horrible,” Kurt says, wiping at his eyes, drying a few stray tears born of confusion and frustration, “but I think I need a break. I think we maybe rushed into this.”

“Are you considering breaking up with him?” Sebastian asks too quickly, but Kurt lets it slide.

“No,” Kurt says, “I don’t think so. I don’t know. But right now if I stay in that loft, I’m going to end up hating and resenting him. I know relationships are hard, and I know people change, but he didn’t just change. He metamorphosed into some strange alien creature I don’t recognize anymore.”

Kurt expects Sebastian to laugh, maybe join in on the Blaine bashing a bit, but he’s eying the table with such intense concentration that Kurt doesn’t know if he heard his comment or not.

“I might be able to help you,” Sebastian says slowly, looking up from the spot that’s been helping him think.

“How?” Kurt asks, discouraged at the thought of taking relationship advice from Sebastian.

“I have a place,” Sebastian says, “in my building. I bought it when the apartments went condo. I thought it could turn into an additional source of income, but I’ve never actually rented it out.”

“What are you saying?” Kurt asks, sitting up again, all at once excited and terrified.

“If you need out that badly, I’ll rent it to you,” Sebastian offers. “Shit, you can just…you can have it, rent free, for as long as you need a place to stay.”

Kurt is speechless. It sounds like an opportunity, a plan even; but he’s already shaking his head.

“I…I can’t,” Kurt says though his brain is screaming at him to reconsider.

“Why can’t you?” Sebastian says irritated, and Kurt thinks rightfully so. Here Kurt drags Sebastian out in the middle of the night and bitches about not wanting to go back home and now he’s turning down the perfect opportunity to get the break he needs.

“Because I’m angry right now,” Kurt reasons, “but tomorrow when I wake up, I might not be. I might want my life back. I don’t want to do anything rash.”

Sebastian rolls his head on his neck and sighs.

“Okay,” Sebastian says, staring at the ceiling, “I get that.”

“You do?” Kurt asks, hoping he didn’t offhandedly offend Sebastian by turning down his offer.

“Yeah. I do.” Sebastian looks back at Kurt, his eyes compelling. “But the offer’s always open. Don’t forget it.”

***

Like so many of the things that Kurt feels selfish for wanting, he learns to push Sebastian’s offer aside. For weeks he manages not to think about it, and Sebastian doesn’t mention it again. Kurt convinces himself that he made the best decision. Working on his relationship with Blaine is more important than running away. Kurt made promises. He has responsibilities. He needs to stand by his word, because when it comes down to it, if he strips away everything he has and everything he is, his word is all he really has.

But to prove that no selfless deed ever goes unpunished, the universe steps in and says, “Fuck you, Kurt Hummel.”

Blaine finally gets his big break; an opportunity to have his talent backed by a generous benefactor…an opportunity that should have been Kurt’s.

Blaine’s constantly fluctuating despondency reaches meteoric proportions and Kurt wants so much to show his support and solidarity, so when his chance at stardom finally comes knocking, Kurt relents.

He relents.

He is beginning to think that phrase will be chiseled on his tombstone.

Instead of taking the spotlight for himself, he decides to share it with Blaine.

Kurt always said that Blaine would find the spotlight; but this time Kurt wraps it up in a bright shiny bow and gives it to him.

Kurt makes it easy for him, too. He picks out a musical score that showcases their talents equally, schedules their practice sessions, he even designs and makes special complimenting suits. But after seeing the couple perform together, the eccentric rich socialite who wants so much to promote fresh new talent doesn’t want both of them…and she doesn’t want Kurt.

She only wants Blaine.

Kurt smiles through clenched teeth when she rudely rejects him right to his face. He smiles when she hugs and raves over Blaine, introducing him to the press as her newest protégé. He smiles when they get home and Blaine boasts about his newest success, seeming to forget that Kurt is the reason he got it in the first place. Kurt even goes so far as to make love to Blaine that night, to celebrate this momentous occasion, but his heart isn’t in it, and his head is definitely somewhere else. It isn’t even in the apartment. It is somewhere uptown, moving into his own place, staring out of a large picture window at a new view of Manhattan. After Blaine falls asleep, Kurt crawls out from beneath his body. He creeps into the shower, turns the water on hot, and sits beneath the spray, washing away his tears and watching them swirl down the drain, along with all his hopes.

Kurt tries to find a bright side to all of this; something he can identify in the future as some kind of great turning point. The only thing he can see is that at least with Blaine’s self-esteem out of the gutter maybe it will make Kurt’s future successes easier for him to swallow, but on that front nothing changes.

The cherry on the shit cupcake – larval Blaine metamorphoses again into a diva of Rachel Berry proportions.

Kurt sits at the dinner table, picking through the grains of his risotto with the tines of his fork, trying to find a way to cut the cheese sauce enough so that he’s not ingesting 3,000 calories with this one bowl alone.

Blaine’s most subtle form of sabotage – 10,000 calorie infused meals, full of cheese and whole milk cream, guaranteed to pack on the pounds; but not for Blaine, who’s indulging in a spinach salad with lean grilled chicken and a balsamic vinaigrette.

Kurt sets his fork down and pushes his bowl away, laying his head on the table, the Formica cooling his cheek. To his right, Blaine rattles on about the pressures of overnight celebrity, and the bizarre, often times questionable demands of his benefactor, June Dolloway. Rachel interjects endlessly with her own magnified tales of woe; problems that aren’t really problems in the life of an actress on Broadway.

Problems Kurt would kill to have.

Neither one is really listening to the other. They wait for a gap in the conversation and then dive in, talking over each other when a suitable lull doesn’t come fast enough. It’s all a show for Kurt’s benefit, and he feels trapped between them.

If he doesn’t cut free now, he may not get another chance.

Kurt sits up and clears his throat, not waiting for the conversation to die down for him.

“I’ve got to go,” he announces simply. He pushes away from the table and stands, heading to his bedroom with long, purposeful strides.

The conversation stops dead. Both Blaine and Rachel stare at Kurt who disappears behind the curtain to his room.

“Wh-where are you going?” Blaine asks, sharing a significant look with a bemused Rachel before getting up to follow him.

“I’m leaving,” Kurt says, grabbing a small piece of luggage and packing up a few of his belongings.

Blaine feels his legs wobble, and afraid that they won’t hold him much longer, he sits on the edge of their bed and watches Kurt fold his things.

“But…but why?” Blaine says, unable to believe that Kurt would pick up and leave without any reason.

“I just can’t stay here anymore.” Kurt doesn’t want to be cryptic, but he also doesn’t want to fight, and telling Blaine how he feels about his life and their relationship is the tinder that would fuel an all-night firestorm of arguing and debating with a chance that Blaine might talk Kurt out of his plan; a plan he had thought of off and on for weeks, and which feels right the more he thinks about it.

Blaine watches silently, forming theories and conclusions in his mind until one sticks.

“This is about Sebastian, isn’t it?”

Kurt sighs. He saw this coming.

“No,” Kurt says. “It isn’t.” He looks into Blaine’s eyes and sees skepticism there. “It really, really isn’t. And even if it was, maybe that’s not necessarily a bad thing.”

“How can you say that, Kurt?” Blaine cries, standing off the bed and confronting Kurt head on. “I’m in love with you. Only you. I have been forever. I don’t have any doubts about that. In fact, it’s the one thing I don’t have a single reservation about.”

Kurt raises an eyebrow, tilting his head and crossing his arms over his chest.

“Blaine, you sang a love song to another guy.”

Blaine steps back with a jolt.

“What are you talking about? I didn’t…”

“ _Against All Odds_ , Blaine? You sang it for Sam.”

Blaine’s eyes shift from side to side, searching for a way to defend himself.

“But…how did you…”

“Do you know nothing about Tina Cohen-Chang and her pernicious cell phone videos? How do you think I saw that clip of you twerking in the choir room?”

“I…Kurt, you don’t think…”

Kurt puts a hand on Blaine’s arm to quiet him.

“The point is you’re attracted to other people. We both have been. I don’t think we’ve given ourselves enough time to explore those possibilities. I think it’s actually a disservice if we don’t.”

Blaine lets a long breath out between pursed lips.

“So, you’ve made your mind up then?” Blaine asks.

“Yeah,” Kurt says firmly, leaving no room for debate, but not trying to be cruel. “My mind’s made up.”

Blaine starts to panic, desperate to find a way to make Kurt stay.

“Well, you need time to find a place,” Blaine rationalizes, unable to hide the dread in his voice. “That’ll take a few days. That gives me time to talk you out of it.”

Blaine sees the resolve in Kurt’s face, and his shred of hope fades.

“You already have a place…don’t you?” Blaine asks.

“Look,” Kurt says, putting both hands on his shoulders, squeezing gently. “You left for the sake of our relationship, and even though I didn’t want you to, I think we were on the right track.”

“I came back after you got out of the hospital!” Blaine argues. “I came back for you!”

“I know you did,” Kurt says quietly. “But I think that, in retrospect, was a step back.”

Blaine wrenches out of Kurt’s grasp and flops down on the bed, staring at the comforter instead of looking at Kurt.

“I know it sounds banal, but if we’re meant to be together, Blaine, then we’ll be together. But right now, I think it’s better if we’re not.”

Blaine doesn’t look up, his shoulders slumping, his entire body trembling. Kurt bites his lip. He doesn’t want to hurt Blaine any more than he already has, but he feels a need to cut all ties. He slides his engagement ring off his finger, setting it delicately on the dresser beside Blaine’s favorite bowtie. He zips up his bag and sets it down, tugging up the handle and rolling it across the floor. He takes two steps when Blaine speaks, his voice quivering and thick with the beginning of tears.

“I thought you said you’d always love me.”

Kurt doesn’t turn around. He doesn’t want to risk breaking down and falling into Blaine’s arms.

“I do,” Kurt answers with no reservations. “And I always will. But that doesn’t necessarily mean we belong together.”

Kurt walks through the curtain and makes his way to the kitchen where a shocked and shaking Rachel wrings her hands in front of her, tears and liquid black liner streaking down her cheeks, the picture of a 1920s movie siren in a bittersweet black and white movie.

Kurt knows she heard every word, and that some of her tears are for him. The rest of them are for Finn.

“Oh, Rachel,” Kurt says, wrapping her in his arms and hugging her tight. “I’m so sorry I didn’t talk to you about this earlier, but it’s something I have to do.”

He can feel her nod against his shoulder.

“I understand,” she whispers brokenly into his shirt, keeping a little distance so as not to stain the fabric. “Call me when you get where you’re going. Okay? Let me know you’re safe.”

“I promise.” He kisses her forehead, lingering with his lips pressed against her skin. Blaine’s tears he was prepared to deal with. Rachel’s are a bit more than he can bear.

She hugs him once harder and lets him go, fingers trailing down his sleeves as he steps away.

“Do you really think this is going to help anything?” Blaine cries as Kurt heads for the door. “Do you really think you leaving is what’s best for us?”

Kurt shrugs on his coat, slipping the buttons through the holes, taking this moment to breathe and collect himself. He gathers the strength to look up into Blaine’s pleading hazel eyes.

“No,” Kurt answers honestly. “It’s what’s best for me.”

***

Kurt sits on his bed and listens to the quiet in his new bedroom; emotionally drained but blissfully content for the first time in ages. Moving out of the loft was an experience Kurt never wants to repeat again no matter how long he lives. Luckily he had Elliot there to help him. Sebastian offered, but Kurt thought it better not to stir the pot too much, particularly with Sebastian being such a hot button issue lately.

Kurt had rented a U-Haul for his furniture, and a couple of students from his combat class offered to help, so they handled the large, bulky items while he and Elliot focused on what was left of his clothes and toiletries. He felt bad taking the bed, but he left the couch he and Blaine bought together, so he hoped Blaine could make due for a while until he bought a replacement.

Rachel fussed and busied herself making sandwiches and lemonade for everyone, even going so far as to pack up a few meals for Kurt’s first few nights in his new place.

Blaine sat on the sofa, staring at his shoes, hands gripping his knees, with Sam beside him, rubbing a hand up and down his back in an attempt to ease his pain. Every so often Sam would look up at Kurt with an unreadable expression on his face – a mixture of sadness and sympathy and understanding, with a little bit of anger on behalf his heartbroken friend.

It didn’t take long to remove all his stuff from the loft, and before he left Rachel gave him a huge hug full of sorrow for the time she was going to spend missing her best friend. Sam gave him a hug, too – more of a bro pat, but the sentiment was much the same.

Kurt wanted to give Blaine a hug goodbye. He did love him, and he would miss him, but as soon as he started walking toward the sofa where his ex-fiancé sat, he stood quietly and walked off behind the curtain.

It took less time to move his things into the apartment than it did to move them out, and before long everybody was leaving. Elliot offered to stay the night if Kurt needed, but he politely refused.

Now he is alone. For the first time in a long, long time, alone, and he would have regretted not taking Elliot up on his offer if he hadn’t already made other plans.

The knock on the door jars him from his thoughts, but it’s not unexpected, and Kurt smiles, standing up and nearly racing for the door.

“Who is it?” he calls out loudly in a sing-song voice even though he knows exactly.

“Fucking FedEx,” a sardonic voice calls back. “Please open the damned door.”

Kurt snickers as he unbolts three locks and removes the chain, opening the door for the tall, handsome man with the megawatt smile darkening his door. In his hands he holds a potted plant with a yellow ribbon tied around the base. Kurt looks at the dark green leafy philodendron with a giddy grin.

“Would you and your well-dressed friend like to come in?” Kurt asks, moving aside to let Sebastian in.

Sebastian hands the plant to Kurt as he steps inside.

“It’s an apartment-warming gift,” he says. “His name is Harvey.”

“That’s very sweet.” Kurt shuts and locks the door behind them. “Thank you.”

“Think nothing of it.” Sebastian slips of his coat and sets it over the only chair in the place. “I stole it off my neighbor’s balcony. She has tons. She’ll never miss this one.”

Kurt walks to a window a sets the plant down on the ledge while Sebastian gives the apartment a once over, investigating each room as if he had been invited.

“What do you think?” Kurt asks, watching as Sebastian blatantly invades his privacy.

“I wish you would have taken me up on my offer and moved into my place,” Sebastian says with a grimace of disapproval. “This place is so small, and I actually feared for my life coming here.”

“Well, the neighborhood’s not the greatest,” Kurt agrees with a shrug.

“This coming from a man whose first apartment was in Bushwick,” Sebastian teases.

Kurt rolls his eyes.

“I needed to do this on my own,” Kurt says, knowing that on some level Sebastian will understand.

They circle the living room, traveling in different directions, but somehow they meet in the middle. Kurt looks at Sebastian, and Sebastian looks back at Kurt with a smile that is sweet and boyish; the secret smile of the new Sebastian that Kurt has grown so fond of.

“So, are you ready for this?” Sebastian whispers, and for the first time during their lazily growing friendship, Sebastian takes Kurt’s hand in his.

Kurt swallows hard at the look in Sebastian’s eyes; not the raw, unbridled heat from the combat classroom at NYADA, but something more innocent, romantic and tender, willing to take chances and move slow.

“Can I…”

The words tumble from Kurt’s lips, but he never finishes, leaning in and pressing his lips to Sebastian’s, a startled gasp from Sebastian stealing all the breath from Kurt’s body. It starts out hesitant and chaste, asking a question Kurt has been waiting to answer for a while. All at once Sebastian wraps his arms around Kurt’s body and pulls them close, and Kurt melts against him, happy to let Sebastian overwhelm him. It’s easy; easier than Kurt ever thought it would be. They seem to fit, from the way their lips slide together, to the way Sebastian’s arms hold him against his body, the way their hips flush together and Kurt’s leg twines around Sebastian’s, and Kurt can’t help but wonder if Sebastian isn’t the puzzle piece Kurt’s been looking for so long.

“You know, we can skip the movie,” Kurt mumbles along the seam of Sebastian’s mouth, “and hang out here.”

“Kurt…” Sebastian moves along Kurt’s skin, kissing a line along Kurt’s jaw, “you don’t have any furniture.”

“I have a bed,” Kurt says, a whisper against Sebastian’s cheek. Kurt doesn’t open his eyes to look at Sebastian’s reaction, but he can feel his smile against his mouth.

“Well then,” Sebastian says, pulling Kurt along, “an evening in it is.”

***

“Okay,” Kurt says, zipping up the fourth piece of luggage and setting it by the door. “So, Cooper’s going to meet you at the airport. Are you absolutely sure? You remember last time when you were waiting around for an hour because he hooked up with that chic Celia in the sky lounge.”

“That’s why I told him I’m arriving an hour earlier than I am,” Blaine calls back from the bathroom. He shoves his toothbrush and gel into his toiletry bag and does a quick scan of the shelves to make sure he isn’t leaving anything behind. Confident he has everything he needs, he joins Kurt back in the bedroom and tosses the small black bag into his carry on. Kurt catches him and groans, moving the toiletry bag into position between his socks and his loafers.

“You know, I still can’t believe it,” Kurt sighs, zipping up the luggage and setting it with the rest, Blaine following close behind him. “Your first movie.” Kurt turns to Blaine, straightening his collar and buttoning up the second button of his shirt. “You’re really doing it. You’re going to be a big star. I can feel it.”

Blaine smiles, wide and relaxed, excitement bubbling beneath the surface.

“Who knew when I met crazy June Dolloway a year ago that I would actually be starring in a movie?”

“I did,” Kurt says, ducking his head, absentmindedly twirling the ring on his left ring finger. Blaine catches the movement and smiles wistfully. Kurt looks backs at Blaine, his own smile fighting to stay fixed in place, but slipping every now and then.

“Kurt,” Blaine says, staring deep into Kurt’s watery blue eyes, “don’t think for one second that I didn’t realize that without you none of this would have happened.”

Kurt gasps. He had always wanted to hear Blaine admit that. Why did it have to be now, after all the fights and the months of not speaking to one another? Why when he was on his way to California for the next two years?

Blaine pulls Kurt into his arms and hugs him tight.

“I’m going to miss you,” Kurt says, resting his head against Blaine’s shoulder as he holds him.

“Yeah, well, don’t worry,” Blaine says, patting Kurt on the back and squeezing him one last time. “I promised I’d be back in time for…”

“Blaine!” Sebastian calls from the door as he races in and starts grabbing bags. “Hands off my fiancé! Your cab’s downstairs.”

Blaine rolls his eyes, releasing Kurt and picking up what’s left of the bags.

“I’ll be back in time for the wedding,” Blaine finishes over his shoulder as he hurries after Sebastian.

Kurt shuts the loft door behind them, following the two men down the stairs and out to the curb. He meets them at the taxi, Sebastian taking a bag from Blaine and fitting it into the trunk alongside the rest.

“Call us when you get to California,” Kurt says.

“I will,” Blaine promises.

Sebastian closes the trunk, and then catches Blaine up in an affectionate hug.

“Stay safe,” he says, letting Blaine step away, knowing time is short and he’s cutting it close. Kurt leans forward and kisses Blaine on the cheek, a single short peck that means so much more than a simple good-bye. Blaine climbs into the back seat of the taxi and shuts the door, turning in his seat to wave at Sebastian and Kurt. They stand by the curb and wave back, watching as his cab pulls away.

Kurt leans back against Sebastian, and Sebastian loops his arms around him.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Sebastian says, resting his chin in Kurt’s hair.

“I don’t know,” Kurt says with a melancholy sigh. “I think I’m a little sad.”

“Why?” Sebastian asks. “This is a great opportunity for him.”

“I know,” Kurt agrees. “It’s just…the city suddenly seems so much smaller now that he’s leaving.”

Sebastian bites his lip, not exactly thrilled with Kurt’s momentary pining, but he understands. Kurt belongs to Sebastian; without a doubt Kurt is unequivocally his. But deep in Kurt’s heart is a tiny spot that belongs to Blaine – a single corner stone amid a huge estate that Sebastian can claim as his own. Sebastian holds Kurt closer and he can already feel the tide turning again, Kurt weaving his arms through Sebastian’s, rolling his head so he can place delicate kisses along his stubbly chin.

“Come on, babe,” Sebastian says, tugging Kurt away from the curb. “Why don’t we head home?”

In the light of Kurt’s eyes the remains of sadness bleed into a new expression of blithe joy.

“Yes.” Kurt takes Sebastian’s hand, lacing their fingers together, rubbing his thumb over the matching, smooth ring on his finger. He looks into his fiance’s green eyes and smiles. “Let’s go home.”


	64. What the Hell?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a one-shot from the ‘What…?’ series. A little peek into the day Kurt moves into Sebastian’s penthouse. Sebastian is helping Kurt escape his apartment after the roach/rat infestation when Sebastian (literally) stumbles upon a piece of Kurt’s past that Kurt dreads having to explain. (Warning for extremely brief mention of Blaine/Klaine)

“Please tell me this is the last one,” Sebastian groans loudly, pushing the last of Kurt’s things through the penthouse door and kicking it closed behind him with his foot. “I’m too young and handsome to have a hernia.”

“Weren’t you on the Lacrosse team at Dalton?” Kurt calls from the bedroom where he’s busily relocating the bulk of Sebastian’s wardrobe to one side of the walk-in closet so he can start hanging up his own belongings on the other side. “What happened to that strong, strapping man?”

“He met a gorgeous prima donna and nearly strained a nut moving all his fucking clothes.”

Kurt chuckles; the light, airy sound of his laughter carrying into the living room where Sebastian stands beside Kurt’s heavy antique trunk, and in spite of himself he sighs like a lovesick school boy. Sebastian shakes his head to clear his stupor, but still smiling, goes back to the task of relocating the cumbersome trunk.

“Holy fucking shit,” Sebastian murmurs under his breath as he shoves the trunk across the throw rug that covers the bulk of the hardwood floor, “what the fuck do you got in here? A body?”

The trunk catches on the fringe of the rug, stopping it from going any farther. Sebastian stumbles over the top, collapsing on the floor in front of it. He knocks it with his leg as he lands causing the monstrous thing to tumble onto its front, the lid swinging open in the process. Lying on his stomach he can only _hear_ the contents of the trunk spill to the floor. He lies still, hoping that Kurt didn’t hear the commotion, but the walls in the penthouse are thick and nearly soundproof; one of the many structural features that influenced Sebastian to purchase his penthouse to begin with. When Kurt doesn’t peek his head out after a few seconds or call from the closet to ask Sebastian if he’s okay, Sebastian figures he’s safe to get up, clean up Kurt’s things, and carry on as if he didn’t just get defeated by an inanimate object.

Sebastian rises to his knees, rolling his sore wrists to make sure he didn’t sprain anything important to boot, and turns, his eyes landing on something that looks suspiciously like a human arm trapped beneath the trunk, gorged and swollen, wearing men’s pajamas.

“Jesus H. Christ!” Sebastian screams, scooting backward across the floor on his hands, pushing with his heels, eyes glued to the dismembered arm.

Again Kurt doesn’t seem to hear Sebastian’s distress, which gives him a moment to rationalize finding a severed human arm in his boyfriend’s trunk. Sebastian squints at the limb, assessing it from a distance, and once his heart stops racing and his senses slip slowly back into place, he sees the object for what it is…and starts to howl like mad.

“What?” a worried Kurt calls out, running into the living room and gasping when he sees Sebastian hysterical on the floor. “What is it? What happened? Are you hurt?” Kurt fusses, but Sebastian keeps laughing, his face turning several different shades of red as he fights to breathe.

“Did you fall? Did you break something? Goddamnit, Sebastian! Would you just answer me?”

Sebastian starts to cough, not able to get a word out, so he points to where the trunk lies overturned on the rug with the arm sticking out. Kurt turns and looks, then his face goes white as a sheet.

“Kurt,” Sebastian chokes out when he finds his voice, “what the hell is that?”

“Uh…” Kurt stammers, standing and rushing over to the trunk, trying to right it and reload its contents quickly to avoid answering Sebastian’s questions, but Sebastian is on his feet as well, stopping Kurt before he can hide the incriminating object away. Sebastian tugs it out of Kurt’s grasp and holds onto it, not letting Kurt grab it back.

“Kurt,” Sebastian says, more in control of his voice and attempting to sound serious, “who is this?”

“That’s just…uh, that’s…” Kurt sighs, lowering his gaze so he doesn’t have to see Sebastian’s expression when he says, “it’s Bruce.”

“Bruce?” Sebastian’s eyes open wide. “OhmyGod! It’s got a name?”

“Yes, it’s got a name, alright?” Kurt says, ripping it from Sebastian’s arms. “He’s my boyfriend pillow.” Kurt hugs it tight to his chest before carefully packing it back into the trunk.

“You know that’s really creepy,” Sebastian comments. “Why on earth would you have a boyfriend pillow?”

Kurt closes the lid of the trunk, sticking his hands into the pockets of the NYU hoodie he borrowed from Sebastian and staring at his feet.

“When Blaine and I broke up, I got really lonely,” Kurt confesses. “I don’t like to sleep alone. It’s hard when you’re used to sleeping with someone else.”

Sebastian’s laughter and smile fade, replaced instead by the feeling that he is undoubtedly and undeniably an incredible ass.

“Kurt, I’m sorry.” Sebastian walks over to Kurt and wraps his arms around him. “I didn’t know. I thought maybe it was a bad bridal shower gift or something.”

Kurt rolls his eyes, wrenching an arm out of Sebastian’s embrace and slugging him on the soft upper arm.

“Ow!” Sebastian yelps. “Okay, I deserved that.”

Sebastian looks down at Kurt, eyes still downcast, and kisses him on the top of the head.

“Well, I know I’m no stylishly dressed fiberfill pillow, but you have me to sleep with now if that’s any consolation.”

Kurt chuckles once and looks up with a smile.

“I guess it’ll have to do.”

Sebastian starts walking backwards, tugging Kurt with him towards the bedroom.

“Why don’t we try that out then, huh?”

Kurt frowns, but he follows Sebastian anyway.

“But it’s early,” Kurt complains.

“I know,” Sebastian says. “We’re going to have tons of moving in sex before we officially call it a night.”

Kurt turns his head towards the abandoned chest still sitting on the living room floor.

“What about my trunk?” he says, trying to pull Sebastian back to get it.

“Nuh-uh,” Sebastian says, yanking Kurt harder, practically picking Kurt up to move him along. “That stays out here.”

“But…” Kurt argues. Sebastian cuts him off.

“Nope. As long as Bruce lives in that trunk, it stays anywhere but the bedroom. That motherfucking arm pillow creeps me out.”

 

 


	65. What Do You Say?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A one-shot from the ‘What…?’ series.
> 
> Kurt and Sebastian are getting ready for their weekly Friday night dinner at the Spotlight Diner with their friends, so why is Sebastian so devastated when a freak snowstorm threatens to cancel their plans?
> 
> Warnings for mention of Blaine/Klaine. AU, romance, fluff.

“Snow…Goddamned motherfucking snow…why did it have to be snow…”

Sebastian paces in front of the picture window of his penthouse giving him an incredible view of Manhattan…and the freak blizzard covering it in layer upon layer of snow, with no apparent end in sight. He mutters curses in English and in French as he side-eyes the window, checking every now and then to see if the snow storm would miraculously stop simply because he keeps telling Mother Nature to go fuck herself.

“How can it be snowing this hard in April?” he groans, smacking a hand against the glass.

“Are you cursing at the weather again?” Kurt chuckles, sauntering in from the bedroom after three hours spent getting ready for dinner. He comes up behind his taciturn boyfriend and wraps his arms around Sebastian’s waist, halting his relentless pacing. “I’m sure that the gang will understand if we’re a no-show for dinner, hmm?” He squeezes Sebastian against him when his words seem to offer no comfort. “Maybe we can join them for brunch on Sunday if the weather clears by then."

Sebastian sighs, winding his arms around Kurt’s. He bows his head and leans forward, resting his forehead against the cool glass, shutting his eyes so he doesn’t have to see each falling flake destroying his carefully laid out plans.

Of course Kurt is right. The gang won’t mind if they have to back out of their weekly Friday night dinner at the Spotlight Diner…that is if they were all meeting up at the Spotlight Diner as usual. But they are supposed to be meeting Rachel and Blaine and Mercedes and the rest of the Scooby Crew at the Four Seasons. Burt and Carole are supposed to be there, too, by now, if their plane hadn’t been delayed by the storm. Now the two are sitting at gate 11 waiting anxiously for the go ahead to board.

Because this isn’t any old Friday night. It’s supposed to be the most important Friday night of Kurt and Sebastian’s life.

“Sebastian?”

Kurt’s voice pierces through the film of Sebastian’s thoughts and brings him back to the present – alone in Sebastian’s warm and cozy penthouse where they’d been living together ever since Sebastian managed to lure Kurt out of his cramped shoebox apartment.

Actually it didn’t take all that much persuasion. When the first massive cockroach/rat invasion hit, Kurt practically had everything packed up and waiting on Sebastian’s threshold. After the bedbug incident he had to endure back when he was living with Rachel and Blaine, Kurt had sworn off any place plagued by infestation, especially when he was dead set that both insect and rodent were banding together to defeat him.

Sebastian would have milked it for all it was worth, teased Kurt within an inch of his life, if not for the fact that Kurt moving in with him – not into his sublet, but physically _with_ him – was exactly what he wanted.

Sebastian had never felt so indebted to vermin in his entire life.

“Sebastian? What’s wrong?”

“Why do you think anything’s wrong?” Sebastian doesn’t even try to hide the disappointment in his voice.

“Well, you seem really heartbroken about missing dinner tonight,” Kurt points out, “and that’s not really like you.”

“That’s not true,” Sebastian continues in a flat, defeated voice, peeking down at the street through his eyelids and then shutting his eyes again. “You know how much I _love_ having dinner every Friday with your friends and your ex…”

“I thought you said that if we skipped Friday night dinners at the Spotlight we could order in Thai and have more time to fuck?” Kurt kids, trying to lift Sebastian’s sour mood.

“Yeah, well, I’m not wrong about that.”

Sebastian shakes his head.

“And,” Kurt says, turning Sebastian away from the window, “you didn’t notice that I’m wearing the brand new Alexander McQueen pants you bought me. The ones you made me promise I would wear tonight.”

Sebastian opens his eyes and looks at Kurt, really looks at him, from his carefully coifed hair (newly highlighted bangs courtesy of Vogue swept up in his signature hairstyle), to his smartly tailored burgundy Burberry shirt, down to the new McQueen pants. Kurt had originally refused Sebastian’s insistence on buying him the $300 pants, but there is no denying that they look like they were made with Kurt and only Kurt in mind. Kurt performs a spin in place so Sebastian can see them from all angles, and Sebastian stares shamelessly, appreciating every inch of the shimmering fabric clinging to Kurt’s muscular legs, the mold of the waist band around his trim stomach, the snug way they cradle his delicious ass.

In Sebastian’s opinion, buying these pants is the best money he has ever spent.

Then he remembers.

They’re the second best money he’s ever spent.

“Well,” Kurt says, posing for full effect, “how do I look?”

Sebastian can only manage a partial smile at the brilliance that is Kurt Hummel.

“You look…perfect,” Sebastian says with a sigh of regret. “Fucking perfect as always, Goddamnit!”

Sebastian storms away, leaving a perplexed Kurt standing alone at the window staring at a never ending cascade of snow.

“Wh…what the hell, Sebastian?” Kurt yells, following Sebastian through the living room into the master bedroom, finding him sitting at the end of the king-sized bed, frantically texting on his iPhone. “What’s your problem?”

“None of your business, princess,” Sebastian says, not looking up, his voice a thin façade of calm threatening to break any minute.

“None of my business?” Kurt repeats, his voice rising with anger and confusion. “You’re moody and upset over a stupid dinner, Sebastian…”

Sebastian glares up at Kurt, eyes burning through him with unexplained and unexpected rage.

“ _Stupid_ dinner?” Sebastian growls, his jaw locked around the words, caging his sharp tongue. “Stupid dinner?” Sebastian stands from the bed, and Kurt steps back.

“Yes, Sebastian,” Kurt says, matching Sebastian’s intensity but not his anger, wanting desperately to cool his boyfriend’s impending tantrum and rescue the evening. “Stupid dinner. It’s the same thing every Friday. You’ll have a burger, I’ll have a salad, Rachel will whine about her new Broadway show, Blaine will complain about June and some crazy scheme she has him wrapped up in, and then you and me will call it a night. Probably come back here for some naked Pictionary, Seb.”

“Oh, so I’m that predictable then?” Sebastian says, the words still angry but coming across as a challenge; a challenge that Kurt isn’t sure how to take.

“I…I didn’t say that, Seb,” Kurt says, feeling an alarming need to defend himself. “Don’t put words in my mouth.”

“You think you know everything about me, Hummel?” Sebastian’s voice drops to a whisper as he advances on Kurt, hands secure on his hips pushing him towards the wall. “You think you know me so fucking well?”

Kurt stands his ground, not making it easy for Sebastian to move him from his spot, smiling at the grunts of effort Sebastian makes when Kurt’s feet don’t budge.

“I think I know you well enough.” Kurt juts his chin defiantly.

“Yeah? What do you know about me?”

Kurt can’t help the mood he’s in, the aggravation at Sebastian’s spoiled attitude simmering beneath the surface of his skin.

“I know you can be a real asshole when you want to be,” Kurt blurts out without thinking.

“Really?” Sebastian says with mock interest, a smirk of triumph splitting his lips when he finally manages to push Kurt into the corner and block him in with his body.

“Yup.” Kurt tries to pretend the close proximity of Sebastian’s body doesn’t affect him, especially now when he wants to be furious with him, but he can’t. They act on each other like magnets – Sebastian pushes and Kurt pulls, until even in this state of utter and complete irritation, all Kurt wants to do is tear the Brooks Brothers shirt from Sebastian’s chest and devour every inch of his smooth, tanned skin. “In fact, you’re so good at it I don’t think you even realize when you’re doing it anymore. It’s part of who you are now.”

“So, I’m an asshole?” The teasing trace in Sebastian’s voice dissolves almost completely, his face contorting back to anger, but this time with hurt in the mix.

Kurt wants to explain himself, but Sebastian leans in close, and pins him with his stare.

“Would an asshole visit you in the hospital and stand by your door while you slept to make sure you’re okay?”

Kurt’s eyes went wide.

“Sebastian, you never told me…”

“Would an asshole follow you around New York City, trying to keep you safe?”

“Sweetheart, I…”

“Would an asshole offer you a place to live rent free so you don’t have to spend the rest of your life with a douche?”

Kurt stops trying to interrupt and simply shakes his head, wanting Sebastian to stop, to give him space to breathe. Sebastian looks into Kurt’s face and notices his shocked expression and backs away.

“I’m…I’m sorry, Kurt. It’s just…” Sebastian walks off toward the window where the falling snow seems to have doubled in volume. “This wasn’t just any Friday night. But if I’m just some asshole, maybe this was actually a blessing.”

“What do you mean?” Kurt asks quietly, slowly crossing the room to join him. “You’re not having second thoughts, are you?”

“What?” Sebastian asks, eyes trained outside. “No, I’m not having second thoughts. I…”

Sebastian spins around so fast he almost falls forward onto his smirking boyfriend.

“Wait? You knew?”

Kurt shrugs, biting his tongue and forcing himself not to look too smug.

“How…”

“Little things,” Kurt divulges. “You’re not that good at keeping secrets, and like I said, I know you well enough.”

Sebastian sighs, shrinking beneath Kurt’s softening gaze.

“I wanted everything to be perfect for once,” Sebastian confesses, dropping his eyes to his feet.

Kurt takes Sebastian’s hand in his, pulling gently to coax Sebastian’s eyes up.

“Well?” Kurt asks.

“Well, what?” Sebastian says, looking at the hand holding his.

“Aren’t you going to ask me?”

Sebastian’s eyes rise to meet Kurt’s

“But your dad’s flying in. With Carole. And everyone you know is coming to dinner to see,” Sebastian argues. “Don’t you want to wait?”

Kurt shakes his head with a small smile.

“Don’t you think I’ve waited long enough?”

Sebastian takes a sharp breath in, stunned and silent for a second. Then he pats down his pockets madly, and Kurt giggles knowing exactly what he’s searching for.

“Uh…” Sebastian fishes the small rounded black box from his pocket, and even without its blue outer box Kurt knows this ring is from Tiffany’s. Sebastian looks around the room, chewing on the inside of his cheek, his mind working furiously. He leads Kurt to the bed and sits him down, dropping to a knee between Kurt’s legs. Kurt waits as Sebastian opens his mouth and closes it. He looks down at his hands, opens his mouth, and closes it again. He clears his throat, fiddling with the box in his hands. Kurt wants to lay a reassuring hand in Sebastian’s hair, but he holds still instead.

“Kurt, I’m…I’m not really good at things like this,” Sebastian starts, still eying the little black box holding a huge portion of his future happiness inside. “Flowery words and huge displays aren’t really my forte, as you can see. I couldn’t even get everyone together for dinner.”

Kurt nods, fighting back a nervous chuckle.

Sebastian pauses again and Kurt thinks that might be the end of it, that Sebastian will shove the box in his hand without another word, and Kurt realizes that would be fine.

There really isn’t anything Sebastian needs to say. He doesn’t need to convince Kurt to say yes.

Sebastian laughs once and looks up at Kurt.

“I love you, Kurt,” Sebastian says with a shrug. “I think…no, I’m sure I always have, and if I was a different kind of person, I would have fought for you…” Sebastian swallows hard, looking mildly contrite, “…but you’re right. I am an asshole. I acted like a jerk, and I didn’t treat you the way you deserved to be treated.”

“And how do I deserve to be treated?” Kurt asks out of blind, morbid curiosity.

“You deserve to be treated like a prince,” Sebastian responds without hesitation. “You deserve to be told how breathtaking you are every day….” Sebastian takes Kurt’s hand, his left hand, the hand whose ring finger has lain bare ever since Kurt moved out of the loft, and kisses it across the knuckles. “You deserve to be worshipped and made love to and have everything you’ve ever wanted.”

Kurt’s whole body trembles with every kiss, his heart stuttering with every word, and a sudden surge of urgency fills his body straight to his bones. He wants Sebastian to end this wonderful torture and ask him already.

“So I’m hoping,” Sebastian continues, his whispered voice racing along Kurt’s skin, “that maybe this can be the beginning of me worshipping you for the rest of my life.”

Sebastian lets go of Kurt’s hand long enough to produce the black box and open it. Kurt gasps at the simple platinum band inside, a pair of two diamonds studding the band in four places around the ring; such a different ring from the one that Blaine had given him on that Dalton staircase so long ago.

A different ring for a very different promise.

Sebastian smirks at Kurt’s dazed expression of awe.

“So, what do you say, Kurt?” Sebastian says, pulling the ring from the box and holding it in front of Kurt’s ring finger, waiting to slip it on. “Are you going to marry me or not?”

Kurt is caught in what he’s sure is a dream. He’s been in this position dozens of times, and each time he’s woken up before his alarm, disappointed and heartbroken.

“Ask me again?” Kurt pleads, looking from the ring to Sebastian’s smiling green eyes, back down to the beautiful ring.

Sebastian kneels up straight, his lips hovering shy of Kurt’s ear.

“My gorgeous, amazingly talented Kurt…my boyfriend…my lover…the best friend I’ve ever had…will you marry me?”

Kurt holds his breath, wanting to linger in this moment a while longer, but he’s already nodding yes, the ring fitting itself onto his finger, and when he finally opens his mouth to say the word, it’s a choked, insignificant sound, swallowed by Sebastian’s mouth on his because they both knew from the start that there wasn’t any other option for Kurt than to accept.

“So, when are our friends expecting us?” Kurt asks, refusing to remove his lips from his fiancé’s mouth.

“In about two hours,” Sebastian says, “but I think we’ll have to wait for tomorrow to see your dad and Carole.”

Kurt smiles.

“So, we have some time to make love before dinner?”

“Hmmm, I guess we do,” Sebastian agrees, “provided we make it there at all.”

Kurt scoots back on the bed and Sebastian crawls after him.

“Are you going to take off your ring so they can watch me propose to you all over again?” Sebastian asks, unbuttoning Kurt’s shirt.

“Nope,” Kurt says simply, starting with the buttons on Sebastian’s pants.

“Uh-oh,” Sebastian laughs. “I think Berry’s going to flip her shit if she finds out she missed it.”

“Well, then she’s just going to have to learn to deal with it,” Kurt says, cupping a hand beneath Sebastian’s chin and pulling his eyes up to meet his. “Because this ring is never coming off my finger.”


	66. What Should We Do?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, here’s another one-shot from the ‘What…?’ series. On what should be the biggest day of Kurt and Sebastian’s life, Sebastian is MIA and Kurt is in the bathroom with his head over the toilet. To top it off, the storm of the century is about to hit the east coast. Is this just the fates saying that Kurt and Sebastian were just not meant to be? (Warning for mention of vomitting and Blaine-friendly but no Klaine because he has to be a good guy every once in a while. I like to believe that people grow up :) Romance, fluff, good-feelings all around… )

Kurt barrels down the beach, trying to stay on the narrow, blue runner lying across the sand so he doesn’t trip and fall flat on his face. Confused eyes watch him fly down the aisle, his hand clamped tight over his mouth to rescue him from an even more devastating embarrassment.

“Kurt!” Blaine calls after him, chasing him as dark clouds close in overhead, gray and heavy and threatening rain. The entire wedding party and throng of guests pulls their eyes away from the couple racing past them as a bolt of lightning flashes overhead, lighting up the tent on the beach, throwing disturbing and chaotic shadows around them.

“Kurt! Stop!”

Kurt doesn’t stop. He runs straight for the temporary bathrooms outside the tent and locks himself in the first available one.

“Kurt! I’m so sorry!” Blaine says through the door as thunder rumbles loud overhead.

Kurt opens his mouth to bite back with a witty retort for Blaine’s weak apology, but his stomach lurches and Kurt barely makes it to the toilet. He vomits up everything in his stomach, everything he’s ever eaten since he first thought about getting married, all the way back to when he was twelve and he used to marry his X-Men and Power Ranger action figures off in elaborate ceremonies on the front lawn of his house.

“Kurt,” Blaine continues when the sound of retching dies down, “are you okay?”

Quiet moans are Kurt’s only reply.

“Kurt, I didn’t mean to hurt you! I never intended…”

“I asked you for one thing!” Kurt finally roars over the rattling of the wind whipping the walls of the bathroom hut. “ _One_ thing to not ruin this ceremony, and you couldn’t do that, could you!?”

“I didn’t think it would make that much of a difference!”

“Well, it did!” Kurt cries, leaning back over the toilet, feeling queasy and angry and fed up all at the same time…but mostly queasy. “It _did_ make a difference and now the whole ceremony is ruined.”

“It’s not ruined!” Blaine counters, trying to console the hysterical groom.

“How is this not ruined?” Kurt bellows. “He’s not here! Sebastian’s not here and it’s all your fault!”

“But…”

“I asked you to bring him!” Kurt rails over him. “You! How could you pass him off to Cooper! I mean, have you even met your broth- _urgh!”_

Blaine winces sympathetically, leaning his head against the door. Another crash of thunder drowns out the sound of Kurt being sick, but the earth-shaking noise doesn’t even phase Blaine.

Kurt’s right. He fucked up.

“Why did he have to stay at that stupid suite across town?” Kurt whimpers. “Why couldn’t he have stayed here at the hotel with us?”

“It’s some sort of Smythe tradition,” Blaine explains. “I don’t remember all that well. I might have been a little drunk last night when he told me.”

Kurt rolls his eyes. Apparently while he, Rachel, and Mercedes were watching the _Twilight_ trilogy and busily wrapping Jordan almonds into tiny net tulle bags until their fingers bled; Cooper, Blaine, and Hunter kidnapped Sebastian and dragged him out to a local gay bar for the stag party of the century.

All Kurt knows about it he got from cell phone footage sent to him in the morning.

He isn’t too upset at Sebastian for the naked lap dance that Coop had bought for him as a wedding present, especially since in the video Sebastian didn’t look too into it, but Kurt vowed that the next time he sees Cooper Anderson he’s going to run the man over with his Navigator.

On top of that, Sebastian’s parents had rented Sebastian two adjoining suites at an extravagant hotel on the complete opposite side of the city, and from the jokes and jabs of yesterday afternoon it seemed that its sole purpose was to keep Kurt and Sebastian apart. Kurt couldn’t help but wonder at the time if they were sending him some sort of subliminal message.

Well if _they_ weren’t, the universe seemed to be. Late last night the storm of the century started brewing off the east coast, and if news meteorologists can be believed it is headed right for his wedding.

Kurt is amazed he hasn’t broken down completely yet.

“Kurt?” Rachel’s voice replaces Blaine’s. “Kurt, I just got a text from Sebastian. They’re here.”

Kurt feels himself start to relax. He takes a deep breath, his throat stinging as the cool air passes through on its way to his lungs.

Everything is going to be alright now because Sebastian is there and they’re going to get married. They’re going to stand up in front of all their friends, and family, and acquaintances from work, and about three hundred other people that the Smythes invited that Kurt doesn’t even know, and they’re going to pledge their lives to each other – to love, honor, and obey, for as long as they both shall live.

More thunder roars, shaking the walls of the bathroom so violently that Kurt thinks a tragically derailed train might be bearing down on him.

He feels his face go green again and another round of vomiting begins.

“How long has he been at it?” Rachel whispers to Blaine.

“About an hour,” Blaine replies, his heart bleeding out of pity for Kurt every time he hears him groan.

“Can a human being even puke for an hour straight?” Rachel asks. “I mean, he barely ate anything last night and all he had this morning for breakfast was an egg white omelet and three slices of turkey bacon. What else does he have left?”

“My guess is a kidney and a lung,” a breathless voice answers behind them. Blaine and Rachel turn to see Mercedes leading a debonair but slightly wind bedraggled Sebastian to the bathrooms in time to hear his intended groom lose the rest of his stomach.

Sebastian pushes past Blaine and Rachel and raps on the door with his knuckles.

“Kurt, honey,” he says, concern lacing through his words when he hears another painful sounding dry heave, “if you’re done throwing up, I’d really like to get married now.”

Rachel slaps Sebastian lightly on the shoulder and Blaine snickers, but none of that hides the worry clouding their eyes. A blue bolt of lightning splits the sky, immediately followed by a growl of thunder, ratcheting up the tension and the overall sense of urgency about ten notches.

“Kurt…” Rachel tries for a comforting whisper but finds she needs to yell over the howling wind. “Sweetheart, you have to make a decision. We have a crowd of people sitting in that tent in danger of flying off to Kansas if they have to wait any longer for you guys to get married.”

Kurt doesn’t answer, and in the silence that surrounds them the wind whistles louder, giving them the eerie sense that something bad is about to happen.

“Uh…” Kurt’s wavering voice cuts through the din, “can I talk to Sebastian? Alone?”

“Kurt!” Rachel objects immediately. “It’s bad luck…”

All eyes snap to her and the rest of the sentence dies in her mouth.

The bathroom door cracks open and Sebastian slips inside, not quite prepared for the image of Kurt – his gorgeous, handsome, amazing Kurt – dressed in a one-of-a-kind Kurt Hummel designed tuxedo, his hair styled to perfection; but his face is ghastly pale, his lips lightly tinged blue, his eyes red from strain and crying.

“Wow, Kurt,” Sebastian says softly, seeing past the sickness and the pain and seeing only his incredible groom, “you look…amazing.”

Kurt smiles weakly, wrapping his arms around his torso, shivering a bit with the cold and the haunting sound of the wind.

“So what’s up, babe?” Sebastian tries his best to sound nonchalant even though in the back of his mind blossoms a fear that there’s the very real possibility of Kurt calling off the wedding. “Are you getting cold feet?”

Kurt shakes his head and takes a step forward, falling into his fiancé’s arms.

“I still want to marry you,” Kurt sniffles, not wanting to make a mess of Sebastian’s tux. He looks up nervously. “Do you want to marry me?”

Sebastian smirks, the slightest half-twist at the corner of his mouth, but it’s reassuring nonetheless.

“I don’t think I’ve wanted anything more in my life.”

Kurt sighs, melting further into Sebastian’s arms. From outside the bathroom, Kurt hears rain start pelting the thin roof, and the low muttering of wedding guests shifting in their seats, complaining quietly. Above it all they hear Cooper Anderson dramatically attempt to keep order.

“Please stay seated, family and friends,” he announces, “while we try to locate the grooms. The wedding will start in just a minute…”

Those words make Kurt’s heart hammer heavily in his chest.

“It’s not that I don’t want to marry you, Seb,” Kurt confesses quickly, competing with the rain, “I just…don’t want all this. This huge wedding…all these people…”

“I thought you wanted a big wedding,” Sebastian says. He holds Kurt closer so he can hear Sebastian’s words with his ear pressed against his chest.

“I thought I did, too,” Kurt says. “But…now I don’t. It doesn’t feel like _our_ wedding.”

Sebastian sighs, relishing this moment alone with Kurt in his arms. He knows exactly how Kurt feels. Ever since they set the date, everyone had something to say about the details of their wedding, but no one more so than his parents. They chose most of the food, invited the majority of the guests, and that stupid suite last night…

Sebastian barely slept, he missed Kurt so damned much.

Naked in bed with Kurt in his arms would have been the best start to this morning. It would have given him the strength to face the horde of people in the tent outside that he himself didn’t know, friends of the family or not.

With the exception of the nausea, he feels just like Kurt; done with it all.

“So, what should we do, babe?” Sebastian asks.

Kurt shrugs, his whole body shaking as more thunder cracks overhead.

“I don’t know, but I just want it to be us, Seb…just you and me.”

Sebastian listens to the rain pound overhead, the wind howls around them, threatening to pull the small hut off its hinges. He pinches his lower lip between his teeth and grins.

“I think I can do that.”

Sebastian turns the knob and the wind rips the door open. He steps out of the bathroom, holding his fiancé tight against him, afraid of losing him to the swirling wind.

“Blaine! Rachel!” Sebastian yells louder now that they’re out of the confines of the bathroom, no longer shielded from the weather. “Tell everyone to go!”

“What!?” Rachel’s jaw drops. She looks thoroughly appalled, holding onto her vintage pillbox hat to keep it from tearing the hair out of her head in its attempt to fly away.

“Tell everyone to go,” Sebastian repeats. “We’re cancelling the wedding.”

“You can’t put that on us!” Rachel screams.

“Of course we can,” Sebastian says with a laugh. “That’s what the best man and the maid-of-honor are for; doing our dirty work so we don’t get creamed by angry wedding guests.”

“But, wait,” Blaine interrupts with a worried glance at a pale Kurt. “So, you guys aren’t getting married?”

“I didn’t say that,” Sebastian says with a more sincere grin, “just not here. Not now.”

“Wh-what…where are you going?” Rachel calls out as Sebastian practically carries Kurt away. Blaine is already gone, directing the crowd of grumbling wedding guests off the beach and back into the safety of the hotel.

“We’re getting the fuck out of here,” Sebastian says, opening the door of the wedding party limo; the gaudy, decorated one with his and Kurt’s honeymoon luggage already stowed in the back. He swiftly ushers Kurt inside. “That’s all you need to know.”

Sebastian chuckles as he catches a snippet of Cooper arguing with someone he guesses is probably his own mother.

“Look, I realize you’re upset,” Cooper yells, “but unless you want to be swept out into the Atlantic, I suggest you head inside.”

Sebastian climbs into the limo beside a much calmer looking Kurt who’s already pouring two glasses of champagne.

“Where to?” the chauffeur asks, nonplussed by the pouring rain from the raging storm outside.

“The airport,” Sebastian says.

Kurt looks at Sebastian curiously, handing him a flute of champagne.

“You look like a man with a plan.” Kurt takes a sip from his own flute, letting the alcohol flow through him and soothe what’s left of his frazzled nerves.

“I am,” Sebastian says, reclining beside his fiancé.

“Are you going to let me in on it?” Kurt asks.

Sebastian drains his glass in one go and reaches for the bottle.

“Nope.” He turns to kiss Kurt, savoring the sweet taste of his lips and forgetting the bottle of champagne entirely.

***

The next day the majority of the wedding guests are safely back home.

Two days later, the caterers, photographers, and the venue are all compensated for a wedding that didn’t take place.

Three days later, for most everyone involved life goes back to normal.

Four days later, family and friends from New York, to Ohio, even a few in France, wake up to an email with the subject line, “Aloha from Mr. and Mr. Hummel-Smythe!” Attached to the email is a video of Kurt and Sebastian, standing knee deep in the calm blue waters of the Pacific, sun shining in the clear sky over their heads, wearing matching white slacks and white shirts – Sebastian’s shirt is untucked while Kurt’s ensemble is offset by a thin, stylish black belt. They both wear leis of glossy green ti leaves draped over their shoulders. White orchids weave through Kurt’s lei at the neck. They stare into each other’s eyes while a smiling, dark-skinned Polynesian gentleman declares them husband and husband; and when they kiss, they’re cheered on by an intimate chorus of onlookers – strangers who for one day become friends and wedding guests.

Of all the people who see the video - from Burt and Carole who replay it over and over, to Mr. and Mrs. Smythe who forward it to everyone they know, even Isabelle who plays it for her entire office staff at _Vogue_ \- it’s Blaine who comments to a teary-eyed Mercedes and a speechless Rachel that he has never seen two people in his life who looked more in love.


	67. A Fairly Even Trade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for Kurtbastian Week 2014 Day 4
> 
> Summary: After Kurt’s husband slips into a coma he goes to unusual extremes to try and save his life.
> 
> Rated NC17 for talk of suicide and death of a major character.

“So, you’re sure you can do this?” Kurt asked the wizened old man for the hundredth time in ten minutes. The patient man smiled wider and nodded.

“Of course, Mr. Hummel-Smythe,” the man said with a small bow. “It’s actually a very simple procedure.”

“Well, then why don’t more people do it then?” Kurt said with a shaking voice and quivering lips. Blaine held his hand tight, trying to offer his support. “Why don’t you here about people doing it all the time, walking around in other people’s bodies?”

“Kurt,” Blaine said, tugging on Kurt’s arm and pulling his focus. “It’s all going to be okay. I promise.”

“And what about you?” Kurt turned on his former lover. “Are you actually okay with this?”

“Yes, Kurt,” Blaine said with a sigh, looking more at peace than nervous. “It’ll be a relief. I promise. I have no regrets.”

Blaine’s enthusiasm was comforting, if not a little disturbing.

After not having seen Blaine in over a decade, Kurt ran into him here, at the hospital of all places. Sebastian had just been in a car accident and slipped into a coma.

Blaine was being released from his 72 hour watch. He had tried to kill himself. After the awkwardness of that piece of information dissolved away, they went to the cafeteria for coffee and rehashed all the details of their lives for the past ten years.

Kurt told Blaine how he had started his own fashion line (finally) with his husband as his main backer, and that they were finally going to start a family.

Blaine told Kurt about one failed record deal after another, rejection on top of rejection until he ended up where he was now - occupying a cramped, shoebox apartment in a seedy section of downtown.

It broke Kurt’s heart to see Blaine like this, giving up in what Kurt felt was still the prime of his life, but Blaine didn’t see it that way. As far as he was concerned his life ended three failed contracts ago, and now he was just biding his time, floating along at coffee house open mic nights with no hope in sight.

It’s okay when you’re 25, but at 37 it’s just pathetic.

Kurt decided then and there to take Blaine on as kind of a ‘pet project’. He told Blaine to give him a week to try and help him out. He had some contacts in the music industry. There had to be something he could do. Besides, helping Blaine gave Kurt something to do other than sit by his husband’s bedside waiting for finger twitches or other changes, no matter how microscopic and ultimately meaningless. There was a point when Kurt feared old feelings might resurface, and a combination of loneliness and depression would push him into Blaine’s arms again, but they never did.

Blaine kept his side of their deal for exactly four days.

The next time Blaine ended up in the hospital, Kurt decided he needed to find a new and unconventional approach to all of his problems. He went to a New Age shop in The Village in search of something a out of the ordinary, or at the very least some interesting incense. The store wasn’t really much more noteworthy than any of the other hippie shops in town but Kurt was at the end of his rope. Guru Shamban was the only thing unique in the cramped little knothole, and when he came out from behind the counter and asked Kurt if there was something he could do for him, Kurt immediately got the feeling that this man would be able to help him.

“Well, what would you recommend for my husband who’s in a coma and my friend who keeps trying to kill himself?”

“Perspective,” the kindly old man said, and to Kurt’s surprise he asked about Blaine. They sat at a lowered table on colorful pillows and Kurt told the man everything, pretty much starting from high school till the present day; how his and Blaine’s engagement fell completely apart and then how he got reacquainted with Sebastian. After years of acting like asses to each other it was love at first (or fifth) sight.

The man listened dutifully, absorbing all Kurt had to say, never interrupting, nodding here and there.

“My husband still has some brain activity left, but it’s fading every day,” Kurt confessed. “I need a solution quick and at this point I’m ready to try anything.”

“So, you value your husband’s life,” the man surmised, “and your friend doesn’t value his. Do you think your friend would be willing to swap places with your husband?”

When Kurt had said ‘ready to try anything’, he hadn’t expected that. He was infuriated that this man would waste his time and then tease him like this, until he introduced Kurt to his young daughter…a girl of about seventeen, who was actually the man’s 89 year-old mother.

Kurt was prepared to be skeptical. In fact, he wanted to tear this cockamamie idea apart with both hands, but the girl was just too convincing. Kurt still didn’t necessarily believe the man, but what could it hurt to try. He wasn’t sure Blaine would agree or just think he was crazy, but when Kurt laid the whole plan out for him, he actually seemed excited.

“I’ll do it! Of course I’ll do it! I mean, I’m trying to check out of life anyway.”

That’s how they ended up in the hospital, surrounding Sebastian’s comatose body, preparing for what, Kurt wasn’t exactly certain. Bright lights? Choirs of angels? A floating God head descending on Sebastian’s room?

“I wonder if you see all the moments in your life when you die or just the significant ones,” Blaine mused.

“I imagine it’s a combination of the two,” Kurt said, even though he didn’t quite believe in that ‘life passing before your eyes’ stuff, but there was no reason not to humor his friend. Blaine had a goofy smile on his face and Kurt couldn’t help the overwhelmingly massive pang of guilt that filled him head to toe.

The guru said a blessing over Sebastian’s body in a language Kurt couldn’t even begin to identify, laying prayer beads around Sebastian’s neck and anointing his face and hands with some sort of sweet smelling oil. Then he turned to Blaine and held out a hand to him.

“Are you ready, young man?” the guru asked.

Blaine smiled and nodded, taking the offered hand, and then taking Sebastian’s hand.

“There will be no pain,” the guru said to Blaine. “There’s no reason to be scared.”

Kurt couldn’t help but notice that Blaine looked far from scared. He turned to Kurt with that shy smile that Kurt remembered first falling in love with. Now it made him look so young it was almost heartbreaking.

“I always loved you, Kurt,” Blaine whispered. “I never stopped. I could never give you anything, even when we were together, but now I can give you this.”

The pang of guilt exploded into a full-fledged super nova of guilt, threatening to engulf every inch of him – body, heart, and soul.

“No,” Kurt gasped, shaking his head slowly. He loved his husband. He couldn’t live without his husband. There was no way he could wake up to another sunrise if his husband didn’t survive. But this was wrong, so wrong. There had to be another way. There just had to. Sacrificing one life for another seemed so medieval. He reached for Blaine’s hand to pull it out of Sebastian’s, so they could take a moment and talk this through, but Blaine put out an arm and kept Kurt away, feeling his body already fill with a warm, radiant light, images from his life spiraling around his head, just the way he had imagined.

_“I always loved you, Kurt.”_

_“I’ll do it! Of course I’ll do it!”_

_“I don’t have to be your pet project.”_

_“Okay. I lied. It’s not just coffee. Don’t drink it.”_

_“We’re really doing it! Making a future together.”_

_“So, Kurt Hummel, my amazing friend, my one true love…”_

_“I will sign whatever you want, just please say that you and I could be boyfriends again…”_

_“I was with someone.”_

_“Kurt…there is a moment…”_

_“I’ve got your back…”_

_“Beat the shit out of me, if that’s going to make you feel like a big guy! It’s never going to change me…”_

_“Mom…dad…there’s something I need to tell you…”_

_“Cooper! Give it to me! It’s mine!”_

_“But, moooooom…I know I don’t like Brussels sprouts…”_

_“Dad-da…dad-da…dadadadada…”_

The flat line alert sounded just as Blaine’s body collapsed to the floor. Hazel eyes shot open and looked up at Kurt with shock.

“K-Kurt?” the confused man said, his arms flailing. The voice was Blaine’s, but Kurt could hear Sebastian in it. “Kurt? What’s going on? What am I doing here?”

Kurt sobbed, grateful and mortified all at the same time. Watching his husband’s body die, knowing that the man he once loved more than anything was trapped inside, was almost too much to bear. Kurt saw nurses with a crash cart flood the room. The patient guru with the sad eyes was nowhere to be seen.

Kurt hedged. He and Blaine had discussed this, but Kurt didn’t know if he could go through with it.

He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, hoping it would be easier to say in the dark behind his eyelids.

“DNR!” Kurt choked out, trying hard not to bend down and cradle the fallen man by his side. “He has a DNR!”

The head nurse scowled and checked the chart.

“When did this happen?” she asked, eyeing him suspiciously.

“I got the order a few days ago,” Kurt sniffled, holding tight to Sebastian’s hand where his body lay still and nonresponsive in the bed. “It’s what he wanted.”

It wasn’t a lie. That wasn’t Sebastian anymore, it was Blaine, and Blaine didn’t want to live.

Still with a wary eye in his direction, the nurse shooed the crash cart away, and started turning off machines and detaching IV’s.

“Should we find a place for your friend?” she asked bitterly, but he made it a point not to notice.

“Yes, please,” he said, not looking down where Blaine’s body lay sprawled on his tailbone, a look of confusion on his face. A male nurse helped Blaine’s body with its new owner settle into a nearby chair, checking his eyes and his pulse to make sure he didn’t suffer a concussion from his fall.

Kurt looked into his husband’s face, struck hard by disbelief that it was Sebastian’s body, but not his soul.

It was Blaine.

Blaine died.

Blaine died so Sebastian could live, and in Kurt’s heart there would always be an empty space where Blaine once stayed.

Kurt leaned over the bed and kissed his husband’s forehead, smoothing out the lines of his face and brushing back silky brown hair from his smooth brow.

“Thank you, Blaine,” Kurt whispered, resting his head on the man’s chest. “Thank you for giving me my husband back.”

Kurt followed the line of Sebastian’s body down to his knee, then turned to the shell-shocked man sitting on the chair watching him. Kurt waited until all the nurses left and knelt down beside him.

“It’s alright,” Kurt soothed the catatonic man whose panic stricken eyes stayed glued to the body in the bed. “You’re going to be fine now.”

“What the fuck is happening to me?” Sebastian asked, his voice too strange, too unnerving to his ears.

“You’re going to live out the rest of your life, baby. You’re going to be with me for years to come and live to be an old man.”

“What did you do to me, Kurt?” Sebastian asked, not sure yet if he was furious or ecstatic.

“Sebastian,” Kurt said, taking a deep breath, wrapping his arms around him and holding him close. “Your body died, baby. There was nothing we could do to save it. Long story short…” Kurt swallowed hard, “…you’re Blaine Anderson.”


	68. For All the Little Angels

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this for the Glee Write What You Know Fest. Warnings: It’s short and it’s sad, so be warned. If you have triggers about losing a child, then you might not want to read it. Nothing graphic, just Kurt and Sebastian trying to cope with loss. Warnings for anxiety and PTSD.

Sebastian feels Kurt shift beside him, his feet kicking out at the blankets, and sighs.

 _‘It must be three o’clock,’_ Sebastian thinks through the heavy fog settling in his brain in place of sleep. Not that he blames his husband. Sebastian’s been up since two.

He hears Kurt whimper, sniffling, struggling, and he knows it won’t be long before Kurt wakes up.

Sebastian curses behind his eyelids, feeling completely impotent because he knows he cannot help him.

It’s been three months, and they still haven’t recovered. Three months and there isn’t a day they’ve been able to sleep through the night without devolving into this ritual of Sebastian lying in bed, pretending to be asleep, while he waits for the nightmares to shake Kurt awake.

So many times Sebastian tried to hold him, tried to soothe him, but there is no soothing this. Nothing Sebastian can do will make it go away, and they’ve pretty much tried everything.

Movie marathons.

Lots of alcohol.

Unhealthy and painful amounts of sex.

Nothing helps.

Sebastian recommended therapy, but Kurt isn’t ready to let a stranger in on the details of their pain, so for lack of a better way to deal with things he chooses to ride out his torment this way.

They hide themselves away.

They’ve pushed away all their friends. They barely talk to anyone.

They stay awake as long as they can with eyes open wide so they don’t have to think about it.

But eventually sleep comes, and with it the torture of reliving every agonizing moment.

Sebastian wakes up from the screaming in his head and waits for Kurt.

Kurt sits straight up in bed, panting, breathing fast as if he has just run around the world and back. His eyes stare into the darkness as he waits for the last barbed tendrils to loosen their grip on his heart and fade away.

Sebastian rolls over on his side and opens his eyes. If he can’t help, at least he can be there so Kurt doesn’t have to suffer alone.

Kurt’s body starts to relax. He breathes in deep, giving in to reality.

It’s just the two of them.

Kurt and Sebastian.

Together, but alone.

The baby they had pinned all their hopes and dreams on…the one that was going to turn them from a couple into a family…is gone.

She was their dream, but apparently she was never meant to be.

Kurt doesn’t even look at Sebastian when he reaches over the side of the bed for a ball of yarn and a size F needle, and as if he has been doing this every night of his entire life, he starts to crochet. Sebastian watches him, amazed that Kurt has done this so often he can do it in the dark. Somewhere beside Kurt’s side of the bed, Sebastian knows, is a bag piled high with tiny crocheted hats.

Before they left the hospital, the day their daughter died, they passed by the nursery and saw an auxiliary volunteer putting miniature hats on preemie babies in their incubators. Kurt had stared and watched, even when Sebastian tried to pull him away. A kind nurse explained to Kurt how different organizations gather up these homemade hats and donate them to the hospital to help keep the babies warm.

This spoke to Kurt, so this was how Kurt chose to cope.

Three hundred and fifty some-odd hats later, and Kurt still hasn’t stopped.

Sebastian asked him one night when enough would be enough, and a stoic Kurt simply replied, “When I can remember how to sleep through the night.”


	69. A Memorable Easter Eve for Kurt Hummel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this for the Glee Write What You Know Fest, and yes, this is based off of a personal experience. Please note that in the real version of the story, the security guard was a fireman, and I walked the mall completely naked. Warning for slight implied age difference but no underage. Enjoy :)

Blaine is right.

Working as a costumed character is the worst possible job a performer can get. It’s all kinds of humiliating and demeaning. The hours are long, the costume is hot, and to make matters worse, Kurt’s not even working at a theme park. He’s doing a temporary stint as the Easter Bunny at the Lima Mall. He figures he’ll have post-traumatic stress disorder for years to come, but he tries his hardest not to care. Wasn’t it Bill Gates who said that flipping burgers wasn’t beneath a person’s dignity? (Of course, if Bill had to flip burgers in a bunny costume, he might have thought differently.) Money is money, and since it’s Spring Break and he didn’t have anything better to do, Kurt opted for any parttime job that would bring him a step closer to affording NYADA and keep him out of a Lima Bean apron.

Though he doesn’t have much of a basis for comparison, this has to be by far the strangest job Kurt’s ever had. The costume he’s been wearing has been used by hundreds of sweaty, unwashed men and women before him, and isn’t it wonderful that all he gets to wear beneath it is a Speedo? Thinking about it makes Kurt shudder. Every day he races home and showers, turning the water to scalding, trying to destroy the bacteria that he knows is breeding all over his body by now.

Despite this foray into the perils of decades-old communal clothing, Kurt decides to chalk the last two weeks up as a learning experience. For example, Kurt recently discovered that he hates kids. He’s sure his opinion will change later in life when he has his own brood, but for now he wants to gather them all up and drop them into a large pit.

Thank the great spaghetti monster in the sky that his shift – his last shift as the bunny - is finally over.

It’s the day before Easter and the mall is packed. When they walked Kurt to the Easter Bunny court, it was so hot in his giant bunny head he could hardly breathe. Child after child sat on his lap while he suffered in silence (since traditionally Easter Bunnies don’t speak). He could feel the sweat pouring down his forehead and into his eyes with no way whatsoever of wiping it up.

In his desperation, call it a moment of weakness, Kurt considered that maybe NYADA wasn’t worth this agony after all.

Eight long, painful, mind numbing hours later, the bunny handlers escort Kurt, numb from the waist down and wobbling as he walks, through the associate’s exit deep into the bowels of the mall, to a storage space where they kept the Christmas decorations and the artificial tree. It is cold and the air smells stale, but it is the only space available for him to de-bunny.

Once the handlers leave to escort the new bunny up to the waiting masses already gathered around the bunny court, Kurt starts to peel off his costume; throwing it to the floor and punting it into a corner as hard as he can, glad to be rid of the damned thing. He catches his reflection in an oversized Christmas ball and scowls. His face is swollen and red from the heat inside the costume, and every inch of his skin is literally dripping with sweat. He was forced to wear his Cheerios thong instead of his swimsuit due to a lack of clean laundry, and beads of sweat have gathered along the waist band and soaked the fabric. He feels gross; grosser than gross. He feels sticky and vile and positively inhuman.

He pulls a towel from the carry on he uses to carry his clothes and starts to pat his skin dry, wishing he had remembered to pack some waterless soap, but he reassures himself that he will be home soon and this will all be but an unhappy memory. Kurt reaches for the thong, ready to roll it off his hips and be gone with it as well when a sudden loud, piercing noise echoes through the small cluttered space.

It was pounded into their heads during orientation that if the fire alarm were to go off while they were in the storage space to immediately drop what they were doing and make a run for it. The rooms with their heavy metal doors are air-tight. Anyone trapped inside could conceivably die in under a minute.

Kurt wraps the towel around his body and bursts through the door, stumbling out into the mall parking lot. He lets the door slam shut behind him before he remembers that it locks automatically. Kurt spins around…or tries to spin around, but one end of his towel is caught in the door. Kurt reaches behind him for the door handle and pulls as hard as he can, but the hefty door doesn’t budge. He tugs at his towel, cringing at the thought of his Pasha Turkish combed cotton bath sheet tearing, but it doesn’t matter. It’s stuck, too, and the likelihood of him being able to yank it free is next to nil. He grunts in frustration, shifting from foot to foot on the cold asphalt, wrapping himself tighter in the towel as a frigid breeze skirts beneath.

Kurt swivels his head around, hoping to find someone who can help him, but even though the mall is full of people, the parking lot appears deserted. Kurt can see his Navigator, but without his keys getting in will be impossible, and he has no intention of breaking a window. His cell phone is in his bag locked inside the storage room, so there’s no way to call the Calvary to come to his rescue. He starts to panic. He doesn’t like feeling trapped. He doesn’t like not being able to call for help. He doesn’t like the idea of freezing to death in a mall parking lot, wrapped in a towel and wearing nothing but a thong.

Kurt’s eyes sweep the parking lot again, standing on his toes to peer past the roofs of cars and vans lined side-by-side, and from across the mass of vehicles he sees a glimmer of hope in the form of a blinking red light headed his way. The golf cart drives slowly down the aisle, heading toward him; its driver – a young, shamefully handsome mall security guard dressed in a crisp navy blue uniform – spots Kurt almost instantly, a wolfish grin growing on his face. Kurt is not at all pleased by this turn of events. It’s not the most opportune situation, but Kurt is willing to endure a few jokes and maybe a couple of leers if it means getting his clothes.

“Well, well, well,” the man says, pulling up to the curb and killing the golf cart’s engine. “What happened here?”

Kurt tries to match the man’s smile, but his lips quiver with the cold, and he imagines his face contorting into a gas-pains sort of grimace.

“The f-fire alarm w-went off,” Kurt says as his whole body shivers beneath the bath sheet, “and I got locked out.”

“Okay…” the security guard drawls, “so why didn’t you go inside the mall and look for help?”

“Um…I-I’m kind of st-stuck,” Kurt explains, tugging the towel lightly for emphasis.

“I see.” The security guard nods, the expression on his face serious even though a teasing glint twinkles in his green eyes.

Kurt stares at him for a moment, confused by the lack of any real help on the part of the security guard who simply looks back at him with an amused smile hiding at the corners of his mouth. Kurt looks at the man’s name tag.

“Mr. Smith?” Kurt asks, his body shuddering with another passing breeze.

“Smythe,” the man corrects. “Sebastian Smythe.”

“Okay, Sebastian Smythe. D-do you think you c-can help me unlock this d-door?”

Sebastian seems to consider Kurt’s question for a second, then shakes his head.

“I wish I could,” Sebastian says with a shrug, “but I don’t happen to have the key to this door. I’m just here in response to the fire alarm.”

Kurt can hardly hear the alarm blaring through the thick door.

“Who h-has the key?” Kurt asks, jumping up and down on the balls of his feet in an attempt to keep warm.

“Well, your manager should have a key,” Sebastian says.

“B-but, she’s on the t-top floor of the m-mall! At the Easter B-bunny court!” Kurt cries. “C-could you g-go get it for m-me?”

“I would if I could…but I can’t,” Sebastian says. The security guard appears completely unswayed by the unguarded desperation in Kurt’s voice, and this infuriates Kurt, who has gone long past the point of being anxious to completely pissed off.

“S-so what am I s-supposed to d-do?” Kurt argues, his voice rising in pitch and volume as his anger mounts. “I c-can’t w-wait here!” Kurt struggles to keep the towel raised while he rubs over his arm with his hand, searching for warmth.

“Why don’t you go upstairs and get it?” Sebastian suggests, rolling back and forth on his feet, arms crossed over his chest. “Unless…” Sebastian leans in a bit to whisper into Kurt’s ear, “are you _naked_ under that towel?”

“I’m n-not naked,” Kurt gasps. “I’m just…n-not entirely dressed.”

His confession makes Sebastian’s grin grow wider, and Kurt, flushed from embarrassment and the chill air seethes, but he decides to give asking for help one last go.

“Look,” Kurt says as politely as he can muster under the circumstances, “is there any way you can help me? I’m kind of between a rock and a hard place.”

Sebastian leans up against the wall beside Kurt, letting his eyes casually drift over Kurt’s towel-cloaked body.

“Let me tell you what,” Sebastian says, “my shift is over in about ten minutes. Agree to meet me for coffee and I’ll get you your key.”

Kurt’s mouth drops, and the color in his face blazes across the spectrum of red another ten notches. If the human body were capable of spontaneous combustion, Kurt's would have gone super nova.

“So, you’re telling me,” Kurt starts in a dangerously calm and even voice, “that you will go upstairs and get me the key that I _need_ in order to get my clothes if I go on a date with you?”

Kurt knows this is exactly the case, but he wants to hear it from Sebastian’s lips.

“When you put it like that, it sounds kind of mean of me, sweetheart. But that’s the general idea.” Sebastian winks and that’s the final straw for Kurt, whose hands have been practically tearing at the towel wrapped around him for the latter half of the conversation.

“You know what?” Kurt says, his whole body trembling with barely controlled rage. “Fuck you! Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, and oh, by the way, fuck you!”

With that final declaration, Kurt drops his towel.

Sebastian steps back off the wall, staring with a look that’s half awe, half complete and utter shock. Kurt pulls himself up to his full height, which he’s surprised to find is almost exactly Sebastian’s, and walks towards the entrance to the mall.

Kurt learns another interesting tidbit of information that he can put under the ‘life experience’ category of his shitty job checklist – if you walk through a crowded mall like you own it, you can be dressed in next to nothing and most people won’t even look at you twice.

Though some people do. Some people stare. Some people curse while dragging their children in the total opposite direction. Some people whistle. Kurt’s cheeks are on fire, but he pays no attention to anyone as he maneuvers through the crowds and up the escalators till he reaches the Easter Bunny court, sashays up to his straight-laced manager, and taps her on the shoulder.

She turns to look at him and her eyes go wide.

“I locked myself out of the storage room,” Kurt says as nonchalantly as years of acting can help him sound with about a hundred pairs of eyes staring at his mostly naked body, “and I need the key.”

She doesn’t say anything. She can’t seem to make her mouth move. She takes the key out of her pocket and hands it over, pulling her hand back quickly when his fingers wrap around it.

“Thank you,” he says, turning around and leaving the way he came, fully aware that he’s mooning parents and kids as he struts confidently out of the mall.

He thinks for sure another security guard will apprehend him before he makes it to the exit, but he’s relieved when no one seems too eager to approach him, and he makes his way back to the storage locker completely undisturbed.

The little golf cart is gone and so is Sebastian, and Kurt sighs.

He has to admit that if he hadn’t been freezing cold and partially naked, matching wits with Sebastian might have actually been fun, but he couldn’t even consider looking for a round two without a sincere apology.

Kurt opens the door and rescues his towel, happy that the damage to his bath sheet is minimal. A quiet room greets him. He walks to where his bag lies open on the floor, letting the door swing shut once again, grateful for the air-tight seal on the fire door and the warmth of the room. He reaches down for his shirt and notices a folded piece of paper he’s sure wasn’t there before. He unfolds it and reads it carefully once, then again, until it finally makes sense.

_Lima Mall Incident Report_

_4:15 p.m._

_Security Officer Sebastian Smythe arrived at sector B2-14 in response to a fire alarm. A mall employee was found wearing only a towel which was caught in the fire door. S. O. Smythe questioned the employee, and instead of helping the incredibly hot guy out, he proceeded to be a humungous asshole, at which point the mall employee dropped his towel, revealing the sexiest red thong S. O. Smythe has ever seen on another human being. The employee then streaked the mall, which was definitely a sight to see._

(Kurt laughs, blushing with the knowledge that Sebastian had apparently followed him into the mall. Kurt wonders how far behind he had been walking, though Kurt was so focused on his goal he would never have noticed anyway. He wonders if that was the reason none of the other security guards stopped him.)

_S. O. Smythe offers the mall employee his sincerest apologies and would like to trade his offer for coffee to one for dinner._

_Sincerely;_

_Security Officer Sebastian Smythe_

Beneath his signature, Sebastian wrote his phone number.

Kurt giggles as he refolds the paper and shoves it in his bag.

Maybe he’ll have fond memories of dressing up as a giant imaginary rabbit after all.


	70. Never Want to Fall in Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Again, don’t ask. I think I’m in a mood.
> 
> Kurt and Sebastian meet while on vacation in Mont Blanc under unusual circumstances, but even if they hit it off, will they be able to stay together?

_Confit de canard_

_Boeuf bourguignon_

_Tartiflette_

_Aligot_

_Pansette de Gerzat_

_Far Breton_

The order Kurt places has enough rendered pig fat and cream in each dish to give a full-grown water buffalo a heart attack. Normally Kurt would shy away from rich, calorie-laden foods, but when a once in a lifetime opportunity presents itself, you grab it with both hands and you don’t let little things like waist lines and cholesterol levels get in your way.

You hold on tight and you don’t let go.

This is a lesson Kurt has learned recently.

Usually he might be concerned with the idea of the people around him watching him and thinking he’s a glutton, but right now he couldn’t care less. He isn’t going to allow anything or anybody to minimize his enjoyment of his first ever real vacation.

It has always been his dream to travel to Mont Blanc and stay at the magnificent Hotel Liberty in St. Gervais, to take his morning coffee on a patio with a view of the Alps at sunrise, to learn how to ski, to eat decadent meals prepared by world famous chefs, to stay in a hotel room larger than his apartment back home in New York, to live the life of a rich socialite…and he is, even though in reality he’s spending every cent he has - his entire life savings.

It would have been nice to have someone else to share this experience with, but love doesn’t seem to be in the stars for Kurt Hummel.

Kurt opens the recent issue of _Vogue Paris_ and starts to read the featured article about popular vacation locations to enjoy with children. The picture in the forefront is of a young girl with long golden hair braided down her back. She’s dressed in a stylish white blouse –the fabric light and flowing, the soft, ruffled collar falling loosely around her neck. She stands beneath a lacy white parasol that is shading her pale but freckled skin, and inquisitive blue eyes gaze at a point somewhere off camera. The girl looks strikingly like his mom from old pictures of her as a child that his dad once showed him. He can’t stop looking at her, but he can’t stand looking at her either. The image grabs at his heart and squeezes tight. He swallows hard to dislodge the lump in his throat and turns the page, scolding himself for being anything but blissfully happy.

That is the rule – to always be blissfully happy. Do not squander a second on any other lesser emotion.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time since he’s arrived in France that he’s broken that rule.

“Hello, darling? Have you been waiting for me long?”

A mysterious man in a black Armani suit sits in the seat beside him. He takes Kurt’s hand and kisses it, looking at him intently with unfamiliar grass-green eyes.

Gorgeous green eyes, Kurt has to admit, but Kurt still grabs his hand away, the pages of his magazine turning on their own when he releases his grip.

“Excuse me?” Kurt asks, staring at the man who seems to have mistaken him for someone else. “Can I help you?”

“Actually, you can,” he says, pulling his chair closer to Kurt’s, giving Kurt no means of escape other than to lean his body away. “There’s a man following me. He just walked in - short brown hair, brown eyes, wearing gray slacks and an aubergine shirt. Do you see him?”

Kurt rolls his eyes but looks over the stranger’s shoulder, and indeed there stands at the entrance a man with brown hair and brown eyes wearing those exact same clothes.

“Why is he following you?” Kurt asks coolly, trying to return to his magazine.

“Because we hooked up last night and now he thinks he owns me,” the man whispers unapologetically. The man’s candor startles Kurt but he tries not to show it.

“How can _I_ help?” Kurt asks, but his tone doesn’t hide that he is thoroughly unconcerned with the man’s dilemma as he turns to the next page in his magazine.

“I need you to pretend to be my boyfriend.”

Kurt’s eyes flick up to look at the man, this time not caring if he looks surprised or not.

“Absolutely not,” Kurt objects.

“Please?” the man pleads. “If I have to spend one more night pity-fucking this guy, I’m going to throw myself off the mountain.”

“Don’t do that,” Kurt says offhandedly. “That would be a waste of a fine suit.”

The man sighs and Kurt peeks over his shoulder again at the man searching the dining room. Kurt smiles at what he sees.

“So, would that be just _him_ you’d have to pity-fuck, or him and his wife?” Kurt asks, watching as the man is joined by a beautiful blonde wearing a vintage Gucci dinner dress.

The stranger scoffs without turning around.

“Probably his beard,” he replies confidently.

Kurt looks again and this time he laughs out loud.

“So then how do you explain the six-year-old?”

The man’s eyes widen. He throws a look over his shoulder at the couple and their little girl getting a table on the other side of the restaurant.

“Shit,” the man mutters, turning back to Kurt with a wolfish smile on his face, raising his hands in defeat and shrugging.

“You caught me,” he sighs. “Okay, I’ll admit it. I’m not hiding from anyone. I saw you sitting here alone and I wanted to meet you.”

“Ahhh,” Kurt says, but indulges in a better look at the handsome interloper seated beside him. The green eyes, dark and shimmering with the reflection of his smile, seem much more honest now, but his grin still carries a hint of mischief in it.

“Sebastian Smythe,” the man says, offering Kurt his hand as well as his name. Kurt looks at the hand and arm extended his way - perfectly manicured fingernails, a gold Rolex on his wrist, and Harry Winston Ocean cuff links all scream rich, pretentious, and high maintenance.

Kurt stares at him, lips pressed together. He raises a challenging eyebrow at this enigmatic man.

“Come on,” Sebastian begs, inching closer, “won’t you at least tell me your name?”

Kurt narrows his eyes at Sebastian, trying to calculate the risk of letting this man into his private bubble, even if only an inch. Kurt doesn’t know exactly what Sebastian’s true intentions are, but he seems relatively harmless. Kurt has spent too much time playing things safe. The dreams he didn’t pursue, the plans he had made and backed out on, they all lie behind him in a trail of the things his life should have been. He can’t keep giving in to fear – not anymore. He decides to take a chance. Besides, dating this guy is definitely not an option, all things considered, so why not at least give him a name?

“Kurt,” he says, taking Sebastian’s hand and giving it a firm shake. “Kurt Hummel.”

“Well, Kurt Hummel, can I invite you to…”

The kitchen doors bang open, cutting into Sebastian’s sentence, and a small garrison of waiters with carts wheel into the dining room, heading straight for Kurt’s table. Kurt’s face grows unnaturally hot, but he fights the sudden onrush of color away as best he can. Dish after dish is piled onto his table, garnering the attention of every person in the restaurant – customers, wait staff, and all.

“I…I’m sorry,” Sebastian says, his smirk dissolving, “I didn’t know you were already here with someone…or possibly your family…friends…maybe even everyone you’ve ever met. I’ll…”

Sebastian stands from his seat, but Kurt reaches out and grabs his arm.

“Would you like to join me for dinner? As you can see, I may have over ordered a tad,” Kurt says, trying to deflect a little of his own embarrassment through humor. Sebastian watches as the last waiter gives up trying to find an empty space to put any more dishes and leaves his cart beside Kurt’s table, then shuffles quickly away. The eyes of the entire dining room are pinned on Kurt and his colossal meal.

“Sure,” he says, sitting back down. “Why not? I haven’t eaten in about three and a half weeks.”

Kurt giggles, handing Sebastian a set of silverware wrapped in a cloth napkin.

“I don’t stand on ceremony here,” Kurt says. “Dig in.”

Sebastian unwraps his silverware and looks back at Kurt curiously. Kurt’s head is bowed, his hands folded in front of his face with his eyes closed, whispering something against his skin.

“Do you say grace before every meal?” Sebastian asks when Kurt opens his eyes.

Kurt’s brow knits together at the question.

“No, I wasn’t praying,” Kurt says with a bitter tone.

“I’m sorry,” Sebastian says. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

“It’s alright.” Kurt reaches for an empty plate and serves himself a portion of Cassoulet. “I don’t believe in God.”

“So, what were you…” Sebastian asks carefully, but Kurt interrupts.

“I was saying hi to my mom and dad,” Kurt says with a shrug. “It’s a thing I do on Fridays. It used to be tradition to eat Friday dinners together as a family. That way, no matter what happened during the week, we were guaranteed at least one night together.”

Sebastian smiles as he reaches for an empty plate.

“That sounds nice,” he says. “We didn’t have anything like that in my house growing up.” Sebastian looks at the dishes on the table, trying to decide between the baked Camembert or the Hachis Parmentier. Kurt watches Sebastian deliberate then makes the decision for him, scooping a generous portion of each onto his plate.

“Didn’t you eat dinner with your parents?” Kurt asks. Sebastian puts his plate down in front of him, digging into the succulent meat with his fork.

“Not if my father could help it,” he replies, putting the first bite into his mouth and letting it melt onto his tongue, closing his eyes and moaning. The sound immediately attracts Kurt’s attention and his whole body turns toward it. “God, Kurt. You definitely know how to order a meal.”

“W-well I ordered everything on the menu.” Kurt stammers a second but recovers quickly. “I had more than a fair chance.”

“That’s another thing…” Sebastian opens his eyes and barely catches Kurt staring as Kurt swiftly switches his focus to his own food, “why the big meal?”

Kurt watches Sebastian devour another bite with the same favorable reaction – his eyes closing, his mouth moving slowly around the food, savoring every bite.

“I’m learning how to throw caution to the wind,” Kurt explains when he can find voice enough to speak.

Sebastian opens his eyes at Kurt’s answer and this time Kurt doesn’t turn away. Sebastian’s eyes twinkle in the light of the candles lit all around the room. His smile grows wider, more playfully mischievous.

“Then we’re going to need some wine,” Sebastian says, raising a hand to summon a waiter. “Some _really_ good wine.” He winks at Kurt’s bemused expression. “Expensive wine, and I’m buying.”

* * *

 

Sebastian and Kurt spend the night eating and drinking, but most of all talking - talking about their childhoods, about their jobs, about the schools they attended, the places they’ve traveled (though Sebastian’s list is considerably longer than Kurt’s), their favorite pets, where they want to retire. After only about a tenth of the food is eaten and a bottle of Chateau Latour 1955 polished off, Kurt is certain – absolutely and undeniably certain – that he’s falling in love. Not simply infatuation or lust - though both of those emotions could easily abound around a man like Sebastian - but honest to goodness, picking out China patterns and wondering what their children will look like, love.

The night starts to come to a close and Kurt hasn’t even begun to exhaust all the ways in which he wants to know Sebastian. So many questions come up after another one gets answered. He’s such an interesting man, an exciting man, and Kurt is overwhelmed by him. But it’s getting late. The restaurant is empty and the maître de has been hovering in the doorway for hours waiting for Kurt and Sebastian to call it a night. The conversation wanes, and Kurt can tell by the look in Sebastian’s eye that he’s hoping for more, but Kurt isn’t ready, regardless of his epiphany.

Sebastian can feel Kurt’s apprehension and he doesn’t want to ruin a perfect evening by forcing Kurt to come up with a way to let him down easy. He takes Kurt’s hand, holding it in both of his, and rubs his thumb over Kurt’s knuckles.

“What are you doing for breakfast tomorrow?” Sebastian asks.

“Don’t you mean today?” Kurt jokes. Sebastian chuckles, shaking his head.

“Okay, Captain Specific,” Sebastian teases, “what are you doing in, say, four or five hours?”

“What did you have in mind?” Kurt asks, trying his hand at flirting, wincing internally at how rusty he’s become over the years.

“Well, I figured we could order absolutely everything on the menu again, my treat, but let’s eat it on my private patio. I have an incredible view. It’s definitely worth looking at, especially at sunrise.”

Sebastian chews on his inner cheek as Kurt considers, watching Kurt’s mind working through the clear blue of his eyes. Kurt bounces his head back and forth, prolonging Sebastian’s torture of waiting for an answer.

“Alright,” Kurt says. “I’ll have breakfast with you.”

“Great,” Sebastian says, squeezing Kurt’s hand gently. Sebastian is torn between pulling Kurt closer and kissing him, or maybe just giving him a hug. In the end, he lifts Kurt’s hand to his mouth and kisses it, letting his lips linger against the soft skin, breathing in deep, reluctant to let go.

Kurt gasps softly at the delicate press of Sebastian’s lips against his skin, absorbing it into every nerve. It bounces around his body until it settles in his heart, causing the suffering thing to race, pounding in his rib cage like a tribal drum.

It takes Sebastian three tries to convince himself to stand from his chair and back away, holding Kurt’s hand until the last possible second when Kurt’s fingers slip from his grasp. Sebastian’s smile is muted and tired, but it excites Kurt with its warmth and promise.

“I’m in 23,” Sebastian says.

“23,” Kurt repeats, not mentioning that Sebastian’s room is not that far from his own – though that’s probably not difficult in a hotel with only 25 rooms.

Kurt watches Sebastian walk away, bouncing in his seat and grinning at the thought of seeing him again in only a few hours. How is he going to get to sleep? He won’t. It’s impossible.

While the waiters pack up his food and send it ahead to his room, he daydreams of the possibilities. Sebastian mentioned during their conversation over dinner that he works in New York. If things work out between them, their vacation romance (if it turns into that) doesn’t necessarily have to end with this trip. They could go home and date and fall in love and be a real couple.

Kurt looks at the plates spread out around him, the copy of _Vogue Paris_ forgotten on the empty chair to the other side of him, the photograph of the beautiful little girl staring off into nowhere. All too quickly reality crashes in on him, and everything around him becomes a painful blur.

Kurt never put much weight on the idea of ‘love at first sight’. He was sure after everything he’d been through that it didn’t exist for him, and as depressing as the concept of never finding your one true love seems, he would be happier right now if he hadn’t found a man who could possibly fit the bill…

…because how do you tell someone you can realistically see spending the rest of your life with that you don’t have much time left to live?

 


	71. Last Gas Station, 200 Miles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon prompted ‘something with a twist’. I hope this fits the bill. AU. Warning for mention of blood and death (not Kurt or Sebastian), and mention of Klaine. This is a little dark. Please be advised.

Kurt sped down the stretch of dark, deserted road, hoping he would reach the stop and rob before it closed at midnight. Sure, he could have run all his errands in the city and not ventured out to this tiny, sketchy gas station that he, Blaine, Sam, and Rachel had stumbled on the first time they went to Six Flags Great Adventure, but he needed the drive to clear his head. He had all the windows rolled down, knowing that his carefully tended hair would be completely ruined by the time he got there, but he wanted the frigid air stinging his face.

It didn’t matter anyway. It wasn’t calming him down or helping him forget.

He shifted restlessly in his seat, the ill-fitting car seat cover bunching uncomfortably beneath his numb ass. He bit his lip, relying on the pain to quell his urge to pull the car over and start running, suddenly craving the feeling of his feet pounding into the dirt, a burning in his lungs and his heart racing in his chest.

How is it that he was on his way to getting everything he wanted, on the cusp of proving his worth, but according to his friends and his fiancé it wasn’t enough? He pounded the steering wheel and screamed deep in his throat, not letting the sound past his lips. He heard his phone chirp for the hundredth time with Blaine calling and calling, asking when he was coming home.

Kurt couldn’t answer. He didn’t know if he _was_ going home.

The long highway bled out into a country road that seemed to stretch on forever.  The narrow paved street wound in curves and corners almost endlessly, but signs dotting the roadside proclaimed that the next freeway entrance was a few miles ahead.  Kurt tried to keep to the speed limit as he skidded across the yellow divider line into what would have been oncoming traffic if there was anyone else driving the road at this hour of the night.

Kurt blinked hard, trying to clear the angry tears that fogged his vision, almost forcing him off the road. There were no lights lining the thin strip of asphalt, and occasionally his tires drifted over the lip of road and onto the dirt shoulder, kicking up dust and pebbles.

He made another turn almost entirely by feel in the pitch black and saw his goal up ahead of him; a single neon sign illuminated the dark, the ‘a’ and ‘s’ in the words _Gas and Go_ fizzling on and off at odd intervals. This gas station wasn’t anything like the 7-11’s or Circle K’s he went to in the city. This was a run-down looking shack with a few old fashioned pumps out front, remnants from a time when people didn’t actually have to leave their cars to get gas. Through the glass door he could see one lonely attendant standing behind the slanted counter, cashing out the register.

 _“Shitshitshit!”_ Kurt chanted, glancing down at the glowing lights of the dash clock.

_11:57_

He looked at the dreary mini-mart, so much more foreboding in the dead of night than it had been in the sunny afternoon. Suddenly, this didn’t seem like the smartest idea. He debated turning around and going back; returning to his life with Blaine and Rachel constantly lauding their successes over him while he trudged through a mire of mediocrity.

Or he could get out of the car, get what he came for…and decide his future from there.

A tell-tale ding made up his mind for him. He looked down at the car’s gauges. The gas indicator dial had drifted over the line from barely ¼ full to the tiny red block that meant ‘get gas now’.

Speeding down the highway must have eaten up all his gas, Kurt thought, befuddled since he had filled the tank before he left Manhattan.

Still, there had to be somewhere else, he reasoned. Anywhere else. Someplace more brightly lit, with people to see if he got raped and murdered while he filled up his tank. He didn’t remember when he last passed a gas station on the highway, but it was pretty far back. Kurt peeked out the window, trying to see further down the road, and noticed a sign he swore wasn’t there before. He flipped on his high beams and read it.  Mud stained and rotting on its supports, the painted white writing read, “LAST GAS STATION 200 MILES”.

“Well, I guess that answers that,” he said to himself, driving into the loose dirt and gravel, pulling slowly to one of the pumps.  He noticed the attendant in the mini-mart, hand still in the register, snap his head up at the sound of Kurt’s car pulling into the parking lot. Their eyes locked, and Kurt had to admit that this man might have made the long drive in the middle of the night worth it. The attendant – tall and stunning and astonishingly out of place working at a gas station in Kurt’s humble opinion - followed Kurt’s car with his eyes as it came to a stop, then sized Kurt up with a smirk as he got out of his car, maneuvered through the pumps, and walked through the glass door.

Kurt didn’t want to be caught staring, but he couldn’t help himself, especially with the way the man’s green eyes sparkled, as if he knew a joke that he wasn’t telling.

 _‘Poor thing,’_ Kurt thought at first glance. _‘Here alone at this time of night.  I’m probably the only customer he’s gotten in hours.’_

Kurt took a cursory look around, sweeping his eyes left and right without turning his head. He’d only been here once before, and he didn’t really pay much attention then since he desperately had to use the bathroom. The mini-mart wasn’t much of anything really. Outside there sat one square table bolted to the cracking cement. Two uncomfortable looking wire chairs, blue paint chipping from the heavy metal frames, sat beside it, situated with a picturesque view of the dirt parking lot. Inside, the store had a counter with an over-sized cash register sitting on it, a few racks of chips, and a sputtering ice box with the words ‘Pepsi-Cola’ painted on the outside. It hummed for a couple of seconds, and then rattled loudly, like an old smoker’s cough.

Kurt smiled his brightest smile as he approached the man behind the counter, who hadn’t taken his eyes off Kurt since he stepped through the door. The attendant closed the register and stepped around the counter at Kurt’s approach, and Kurt stopped in his tracks, giving him a once over subconsciously from head to toe. 

The man wore a blue and green flannel over a black t-shirt and dark blue jeans, the knees of which were torn and frayed.

 _‘Ah,’_ Kurt thought critically. _‘The Seattle grunge look. Tres circa 1990s.’_

It wasn’t a look that Kurt found particularly attractive, but this man made it work so Kurt was willing to make an exception.

He had a badge pinned to the outside pocket, but the material of the shirt folded over it, and Kurt couldn’t make out the name.  Kurt usually tried to make it a point to call service people in stores by their name. He always thought it was more polite and humanizing somehow.

“You guys aren’t closing, are you?” Kurt asked.

“Nope,” the man said, his smirk growing wider showing all of his perfect white teeth. “No, we’re open 24 hours.”

Kurt tilted his head, his brow furrowing.

“I thought the sign on the door said you closed at midnight?”

The man looked thrown for a second, his smirk slipping a bit, but he recovered quickly.

“New hours,” he explained. “We just started. I haven’t made a sign for the door yet.”

Kurt nodded, sighing in relief.

“Thank goodness,” he said, putting a hand to his chest. “Can I have $30 on that pump out there? And a pack of cigarettes, please.”

The attendant looked at Kurt blankly at first; his green eyes staring into Kurt’s eyes with confusion. 

“What?” Kurt asked, feeling self-conscious in the face of this disarming man whose gaze never wavered.

“What kind of cigarettes would you like?” the man asked, gesturing to the rack behind the counter lined with row after row of colorful boxes.

“Uh, what do you mean?” Kurt asked, trying to build back some of his confidence. “Can’t I get some regular cigarettes?”

The man chuckled and shook his head.

“You don’t smoke, do you?” he asked, and even though Kurt knew the man was making fun of him, that smooth, sexy voice of his pretty much lowered all of Kurt’s defenses.

Kurt sighed.

“No,” he said. “I don’t. But I got a role in an off-Broadway play, and my character smokes so I thought I’d try my hand at method acting.”

“So, you’re going to start smoking for a role?” The man laughed again. “That’s some dedication.”

“Well, no. Not exactly,” Kurt admitted. “I’m just going to carry them around, maybe hold them in my fingers, light them, but I’m not going to smoke them. I’m dedicated, but not ‘willing to contract lung cancer’ dedicated.”

Kurt deflated when the man laughed again.

“I know. It sounds stupid. I mean, my character doesn’t really have any lines or anything,” Kurt said, about to slink away with only his gas purchase.

“No,” the man said softly. “No, it doesn’t. I actually think it’s cool that you would put so much thought into making your character realistic.”

Kurt brightened at the man’s compliment.

“Really?”

“Yeah, I do,” the man said. “Let me help you out. Why don’t you tell me about your character and I’ll help you pick out a pack I think he’d smoke.”

Kurt raised a skeptical eyebrow, but decided to give it a shot. Besides, he was in no hurry to leave. It was nice to talk to someone who didn’t think his dinky five-line role wasn’t completely worthless.

“Okay,” Kurt drawled. “Well, he’s kind of a stereotypical bad boy. Leather jacket, motorcycle, misunderstood. Kind of James Dean-ish I guess.”

“Pfft, that’s easy,” the man said, walking behind the counter and pulling a box off the rack. “Marlboro Reds. The classic.”

“Are you sure?” Kurt said, taking the box and turning it over in his hands.

“Of course.” The man handed Kurt a BIC lighter. “Don’t you watch those old movies with the greasers rolling their box of cigarettes in their shirt sleeves? They always smoked Marlboro Reds.”

Kurt smiled shyly at the man’s enthusiasm.

“What do I owe you?” Kurt asked, tearing at the cellophane and opening the lid. He pulled a single cigarette from the package and put it, unlit, between his lips to get the feel of it.

“The cigarettes are on the house,” the man said with a wave of his hand. “Just pay me for the gas.”

“Oh, I couldn’t…” Kurt started.

“No, I insist,” the attendant interrupted. “That way when I see you on Broadway, I can say I sold you your first pack of smokes.”

Kurt was giddy when he shoved the package of cigarettes in his pocket and pulled out his credit card.

“You take VISA, right?” Kurt asked, handing the card over. He could feel the man’s eyes travel over his body, and he blushed. The attention this man was paying Kurt should be creepy. Why wasn’t it creepy?

“Definitely,” the man said, taking the card and ringing up Kurt’s purchase. “Thank you for your patronage…” He lifted the card to eye level, searching for a name, “…Mr. Hummel.”

The man winked at Kurt and handed back the card.

Kurt’s eyes darted once again around the empty store. He wanted desperately to find something else to focus his attention on besides this captivating man who Kurt was positive was flirting with him.

 _‘If I want to get a bite to eat, I had better do it here,’_ Kurt thought, surveying the row of chips. He scanned the various dusty bags, some of them faded with exposure to the sun. The expiration date on one bag went back several years.

_‘Maybe not.’_

Kurt turned back toward the attendant standing behind the counter, but he was staring down at the floor with a peculiar expression; one that made Kurt slightly uncomfortable. Kurt tried to keep his distance, but the store was so cramped it would have been be like trying to ignore someone standing next to you in a closet. That’s when Kurt noticed a smudge of red on the shoulder of the man’s flannel.

“Are you hurt?” Kurt asked. The man looked up, the color on his face draining away.

“Huh?” he asked.

Kurt pointed to the smudge on the man’s shirt.

“It looks like you have blood on your shirt.”

The man pulled the edge of his shirt until he could see it. Then he looked at his hands. His right hand was smeared with a bit of blood along his thumb.

“No,” the man said. “No, I nicked myself with a box cutter earlier. I must have wiped my hand on my shirt.” 

A wave of dull pain passed through Kurt’s already tense skull as his adrenaline level, soaring as he drove, now plummeted during this moment of calm. He put a hand to his forehead.

“Ugh,” Kurt moaned. “Do you mind if I sit outside for a bit? It’s been a long drive and I think…I have a headache.” 

“Suit yourself.” Then, almost as an afterthought, the attendant asked, “Mind if I join you?”

Kurt turned to look out the door, trying to hide his growing smile.

“That sounds nice,” Kurt said, leading the way out the door and occupying one of the decrepit, chipped chairs while the man took the other.

“Gosh, I can’t believe it’s one a.m.,” Kurt kicked at a few loose pebbles and watched them skitter across the ground. 

“Yeah,” the attendant agreed. He glanced down the dark, empty road, as if waiting for another customer to come by. 

“Doesn’t it bother you to work here so late at night?” Kurt asked.

“Nah, not really,” the attendant replied. “It’s pretty quiet. More lonely than anything.” The attendant looked around as if to reassure himself of that fact. 

“Forgive me for judging a book by its cover,” Kurt said, watching the man eye the road warily. “But you don’t strike me as the kind of man who would be working at a run-down gas station.”

“I don’t?” he asked, an amused half-smile taking the place of concern on his face.

“No. I mean, the clothes fit the overall impression of a gas station attendant, but I don’t know. You just seem…better than this.” Kurt shook his head. “That must sound so snobbish of me. I’m sorry.”

“I think I’d be offended if you said ‘You’re exactly what I pictured a gas station attendant would be like’.”

Kurt laughed out loud.

“Actually, this is a temporary stop gap,” the man explained. “A way to pick up some fast money before I move on to bigger and better things. I’m not going to be here much longer.”

Kurt nodded.

“Very good,” Kurt said, crossing one leg over the other and sitting up straighter. “I heartily approve.”

The man with the green eyes seemed to relax the longer they sat with the quiet night wrapped around them.

“I’m sorry if I’m taking up all your time,” Kurt said, kicking another pile of loose gravel.

“No sweat,” the man said with the hint of a smile. “What else would I be doing? Nobody else is here.”

Looking around, Kurt felt the weight of those words. As the two sat together at the table, he listened to the darkness. No cars. No houses nearby. Not even animals scurrying out of the nearby trees.

“Do you mind if I ask _you_ a question?”

Kurt shrugged.

“Sure. I don’t see why not.”

“Why are you out here on this deserted stretch of road in the middle of butt-fuck Egypt? Especially at this time of night?”

“I’m running away, I guess,” Kurt said after some thought.

The man pulled a face of disgust.

“What’s so bad that you would come all the way out here?” he asked with surprise. “I mean, you’re headed for Jersey, for Christ’s sake.”

Kurt laughed but there was no humor in it.

“I guess I’m out here because I need a little perspective.”

“Well, spill,” the man said, leaning closer with interest, “because you’re in luck. We’re having a deal today at the _Gas and Go_ – free perspective with every purchase of gas.”

Kurt rolled his eyes, but talking to this man had become addicting, and even if what he had to say made him look whiny and immature, the way Rachel always said he was acting. ‘Afraid to grow up’ was her latest take on the matter.

Kurt fidgeted in his seat, searching his mind for a good jumping off point, but then blew caution to the wind and started speaking.

“I moved to New York with my best friend and my fiancé to try to make it in the arts, or on Broadway, but I’m always getting passed over…”

“Let me guess,” the man started when Kurt paused. “Passed over for your best friend and your fiancé, am I right?”

“Yeah,” Kurt said, slightly startled that he could hit the nail right on the head. “But, I wasn’t complaining, because New York’s still New York, even if you’re not a star, and I’ve got other great opportunities and prospects.”

“Like your role in that play?”

“Exactly!” Kurt exclaimed a little too loudly, excited that someone finally got it. “Only it’s not big enough for them. They think I’m wasting my time, that I should go for something bigger, and maybe they’re right. But it doesn’t seem like there's anything bigger waiting on the horizon for me. I should take all the chances I’ve got, right? Because who knows when another one will come around.”

The man looked up at the sky, taking a deep breath of the cool night air. After a few long minutes deliberating with the stars, he looked back at Kurt.

“Let me pump your gas and we’ll talk,” he decided.

“Okay.” Kurt followed the man down to the pumps where his car was still parked, waiting for its tank to be filled. The attendant opened the gas tank door and removed the gas cap. He pulled down the pump handle, stuck it into the tank, and started pumping Kurt’s gas.

“Why do you let those two asshats run your life?” the man said bitterly and a bit out of the blue. Kurt pulled back a bit.

“Excuse me?” Kurt said, doing what came naturally – defending his friends.

“Don’t get me wrong, they probably have their reasons for being total douches,” the man continued, “and they might think they’re doing you a favor by sticking their noses where they don’t belong, but ultimately whatever you do with your life is your decision to make. If you pass up on that role and wait for a bigger one, or if you say ‘fuck you all, bitches’ and go up on stage and smoke your damn cigarettes and say your lines, because you might blow some casting director away and become an overnight sensation. You never know. But, it’s your path to walk. Not theirs.”

Kurt nodded, watching the numbers on the pump scroll to $30. The man pulled the pump back out of the gas tank and hooked it back in place, tightening the gas cap and closing the tank door.

“So I should go back to the city and keep my role in the play, is that what you’re saying, Hunter?”

“Huh?” The man’s eyes nearly popped out of his skull, and a strange look clouded his features so suddenly that Kurt felt his body freeze.

“I’m sorry,” Kurt said, “I just noticed your name tag. Do you not want me to call you Hunter?”

“N-no,” the man said, stammering a bit. He reached his hand to his chest and fingered the small plastic badge. “I forgot I was wearing it.” He kept looking at it, running his fingers over the engraved letters, chewing the inside of his cheek while he did. “Actually, please call me Sebastian. Hunter’s kind of a nickname, but my given name’s Sebastian.”

Kurt smiled.

“Sebastian,” he repeated. “I like that better. You look more like a Sebastian anyway.”

Sebastian tutted and shook his head.

“There you go again, Kurt. Judging people by their looks. But we’re getting off topic. Do you want to do the play?”

Kurt thought, but he only needed a second to come up with an answer.

“Yes,” he said confidently. “Yes, I do.”

“Then do it,” Sebastian whispered as if imparting a great secret. “And might I add that if your best friend and your fiancé can’t support your successes, no matter how big or small they may be, then you don’t need to find a new play or a new job or a new whatever you want to do. You need to find new friends.”

Kurt smiled wider, a great burden lifting from his shoulders as he absorbed Sebastian’s advice and took it to heart.

“I’m really glad I came all the way out here for a pack of cigarettes,” Kurt said, ducking his head bashfully.

“I am, too,” Sebastian agreed.

Sebastian looked up at the sound of a car passing in the distance, and his expression seemed to shift.

“Look, it’s getting late, and you have a long drive back, but if you don’t mind, could I have your number?”

Kurt raised his head and met Sebastian’s gaze.

“My number?” Kurt asked, excited and nervous and a little wary, but he immediately and efficiently stomped that in the dust.

“I would really like to come see your play. And maybe I could take you to dinner after if your asshole _fiancé_ isn’t up to the challenge.”

Kurt bit his lip to keep from jumping at the opportunity. Was he really considering giving his number to another man? He had to be insane, and yet, he had spent the better part of two hours having the most insightful conversation of his life with this intelligent, astute man who just so happened to look like a GQ model, minus the grungy clothing, of course.

Besides, Kurt reasoned, he’s only interested in seeing the play. A patron of the arts, and as an actor it was Kurt’s responsibility to spread the love.

Kurt reached into his back pocket and pulled out a small business card holder, slipping one of his Vogue business cards out and handing it over. The man plucked it from Kurt’s hand and read it before slipping it into the pocket of his jeans.

“I thank you very much,” Sebastian said with a tiny bow. Kurt shook his head, trying to shake away sleep and the feeling that he did the stupidest thing in the universe by giving a stranger his phone number, even if it was only his work number…and maybe his cell.

Kurt climbed into his car, relieved and much more lighthearted now that he had found some direction. Sebastian closed Kurt’s door and waved, putting his fingertips to his lips and blowing Kurt a kiss. Kurt waved back, pulling slowly from the parking lot. He looked in his rear view once more to see Sebastian heading for the mini-mart, waving at him one last time from the doorway. 

Sebastian watched Kurt’s car until it was a speck in the distance, heading back to civilization and a bright future on Broadway. As soon as the red of his brake lights blinked out into the darkness, Sebastian went back into the store and walked behind the counter. He opened the register and emptied its contents, folding the bills and shoving them into his pockets. He found a leather wallet sitting beneath the counter. He opened it and rifled through its contents. He pulled the credit cards from their individual slots and appraised each one.

“Visa, Visa, MasterCard, Discover,” he counted off as he stuck them one by one into his pocket.  He opened the wallet fully and gave a low whistle.

“Jackpot.” He pulled ten folded twenties from the billfold and shoved them in his pocket along with the bills from the register.

“Sorry about all this, Hunter,” Sebastian said to the quiet, open air. He pulled off the flannel with its plastic yellow name tag attached and tossed it on the floor, covering up a sticky patch of coagulated blood that had begun to pool. He stooped down to look over the body that lay there.

“Why couldn’t you just give me the money, man?” he said to the two open eyes staring motionlessly upward. “I would have taken it and been on my way, but no, you had to be a big tough guy.” Sebastian shook his head and tsked, smiling as a thought hit him. “But I guess one good thing came out of all this. I got to meet Kurt.” Sebastian smacked the dead man’s shoulder as if they were friends.

Sebastian stood.  He hopped out from behind the counter and headed for the door. He turned the sign on the glass over from OPEN to CLOSED, walking out and yanking the door closed tight behind him. 

He walked behind the mini-mart and got into his car; a beat up Chevy Nova that had seen better days. He chuckled to himself, inspired by the thought of seeing Kurt again. He turned the key in the ignition, and with a rumble of the old engine, peeled onto the highway, and disappeared into the night.


	72. Something Covered in Chocolate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kurt hates Valentine’s Day, and on his and Sebastian’s first Valentine’s Day together, he tells Sebastian so. But when Kurt wakes up alone on February 14th, he realizes he might have just made the biggest, most insensitive mistake of their relationship. (Rated M)
> 
> (Not as angsty as the summary sounds. Actually cute and fluffy, with some sexy thrown in at the end. Warning for mention of Blaine. Written as a one-shot for my Deliver Me verse, but can be read on its own as it makes no mention of the original story. Takes place some time during Special Delivery.)

Kurt never expected to wake up in bed alone, especially not on Valentine’s Day. He yawned and stretched, limbs popping and cracking, stiff muscles straining nearly to the point of painful before he recoiled and climbed back beneath his down comforter, the cold morning air nipping at his exposed skin until he tucked himself in tight. Kurt lay quietly and listened for any sign that Sebastian was still at home. He didn’t hear the shower running, or the coffee maker bubbling. Without leaving his bed, Kurt knew without a shadow of a doubt that he was absolutely and utterly alone. He breathed in deep, the shrouding winter chill stinging his lungs, then let out a long, disappointed sigh. He felt a little foolish even being disappointed. Wasn’t Kurt the one who had told Sebastian not to bother with Valentine’s Day? Sebastian was such a hopeless romantic all the time anyway, and besides, Kurt didn’t need a special day dictating when and how they showed their love for one another. He'd always thought of Valentine’s Day as an excuse to sell cards and candy on a holiday. In fact, he found Valentine’s Day to be downright abhorrent.

The last time Kurt had had a boyfriend on Valentine’s Day – one who loved him, at least - was during the Blaine era, and he preferred not to dwell on that. Like he told Sebastian yesterday, Valentine’s Day was just another, ordinary day as far as he was concerned. He would go out the day after when everything went on clearance and get himself something covered in chocolate. Sebastian had frowned at that, but didn’t press. Kurt closed his eyes and recalled the exact look on Sebastian’s face – the downturn at the corner of his mouth, the way that frown echoed in his usually smiling eyes. It hadn’t occurred to Kurt at the time that maybe Sebastian had been looking forward to their first Valentine’s Day together, and Kurt had simply dismissed it. He cursed at himself for being so stupid. He pulled apart his cocoon of warmth and climbed out, the thought of an upset Sebastian wandering around New York City alone the only thing strong enough to pry him out of bed.

Kurt had no idea where to begin looking. Sebastian could be out on a run, or maybe he went to the market. Usually he left Kurt a handwritten note, or a text message. Could he have been so upset that he didn’t leave him anything this time around? The thought made Kurt’s heart sink straight into his stomach.

Kurt looked on every counter, every end table, trying to find his cell phone. He had the bright idea to call it, but with no other phone in the apartment, that plan turned out to be a bust. After combing every flat surface twice and still finding no clue to Sebastian’s whereabouts, Kurt decided to throw caution to the wind and comb the city, hitting the spots he and Sebastian frequented together in the hopes of running into him.

Kurt grabbed his coat from the stand by the door, slipped his arms into the sleeves, and shoved his hands into the pockets. He found his phone in the left pocket; and another hard, foreign object in the right, along with a folded piece of paper. Kurt pulled the paper and the hard object out and looked them over. In his hands he held a compact GPS unit, and a folded note with his name written on the outside in Sebastian’s handwriting.

The GPS Kurt recognized from that month when Sebastian decided that geocaching would be the perfect couple activity. After collecting about three dozen partially used erasers, an old condom, and sixteen ‘I Love NYC’ key chains (that Kurt knew came from a kiosk outside the Empire State Building), they decided to move on to something else. Confused as to why Sebastian would leave the device in his coat pocket, he unfolded the note, smiling as he read the brief message.

_Come find me, gorgeous._

Beneath that, Sebastian had written a set of coordinates.

Kurt grabbed their trusty geocaching trowel and left the apartment, locking the door behind him. He punched the coordinates into the GPS, following the digital compass as it whirled and beeped, leading him out of their building and in the direction of Central Park. Kurt followed his little electronic divining rod through the park. He crossed the 77th Street Stone Bridge, nodding at other geocachers, out and about, hunting down their own treasures.

Sebastian’s coordinates led Kurt to a remote area of the park, probably so that he wouldn’t be seen digging up whatever Sebastian had left for him (which meant it could be a sex toy, or something else equally as inappropriate), but when the red arrow lit up telling Kurt that he had reached his destination, there was no place to dig. He stood on the sidewalk beside a retaining wall and some low, thorny brush. Kurt bent over, peering into the brush, and saw something gold twinkling in the sunlight cutting through the trees. He put the GPS into his pocket, and pulled the sleeves of his coat down over his hand. He reached between the branches and the thorns, catching his coat once or twice before his hand came in contact with the gold item. He grabbed the edge and tugged, surprised by the lengthy, narrow box that Sebastian had managed to wedge under the bushes for him to find. Kurt had seen boxes like this one before. They were the kind florists put long stemmed roses in. Kurt smiled, bouncing on his heels with excitement. Sebastian always bought him the most beautiful roses, but the box felt mysteriously light in his arms. He flipped open the lid and his smile fell.

The box was empty except for another folded piece of paper with his name on it. Kurt picked out the note and put the lid back on the box, setting it aside on the wall. He unfolded the note and read the short message.

_You said you didn’t want roses._

Beneath the message was another set of coordinates.

Perplexed as to why Sebastian would lead him to an empty box, Kurt tossed it in a nearby trash and headed on his not so merry way, wondering what his boyfriend had up his sleeves.

He typed in the new coordinates and the digital compass spun once, pointing in the direction of a spot Kurt knew so well that he didn’t need the device to direct him. This time, Kurt didn’t dilly dally around. He walked with a purpose, speeding down windy paths till he reached Wagner Cove, and the rustic wooden structure at the corner of The Lake that served as his oasis of calm once upon a time. The GPS led him right up to the structure, and beneath his feet he saw a small mound of disturbed earth. Kurt thought it looked fairly shallow, and he was right. One shovel full of dirt unearthed a jewelry store ring box, but Kurt knew that it was going to be empty as well, if for no other reason than Sebastian wouldn’t bury an expensive piece of jewelry in the park where anyone could find it. Kurt opened the box and found another note.

He had a feeling he knew what this one was going to say.

_You said you didn’t want jewelry or gifts._

He inputted the coordinates from this note into the GPS and watched the compass spin. He set off again, but this time he didn’t have to go too far, his journey ending at Waldo Hutchins Bench. He searched around the base of the granite bench, but he saw no mounds of dirt, or any other clue that would point to something being buried there. He sat on the bench to think this one through, waiting for further instructions even though he didn’t know _how_ he would get them. He got the idea to reach beneath the bench, hoping maybe Sebastian had attached his next clue to it somehow. He wasn’t the fondest of germs, but for Sebastian, he’d manhandle a public bench and soak his hands in Purell later. He felt around carefully, his face twisting at the thought of touching grime and filth built up over years of sitting out in the elements; the leftover scrapings of ancient gum and the possibility of dog urine; until his fingers came in contact with a piece of paper taped underneath where he sat. He yanked it off and looked at it, but instead of a note, it was a sealed envelope. Kurt put the GPS down and tore through the envelope, eager at this point to reach the end of this riddle and see his Sebastian again.

He pulled a note out of the envelope, and a thin card, about the size of a credit card, tumbled out after it. He ignored the fallen card for a second in favor of reading the note.

_You said that all you wanted was you and me together…and clearance chocolate._

Kurt laughed out loud. He read the note again, noting the lack of coordinates after, and panicked until he remembered the card sitting by his leg on the bench. Kurt picked it up and his panic disappeared.

It was a key card from The Bowery Hotel.

Kurt wasn’t about to walk there. He was through running around the park alone. He pulled out his phone (noting mentally how he’d need to soak it in Purell, too) and quickly called a cab.

It only took ten minutes for the cab to show up, and less than half an hour to get to the Lower East Side, but it felt like forever for as much as Kurt needed to see Sebastian. When the cab pulled up in front of the hotel, Kurt tossed a few twenties at the driver, yelling, “Keep the change!” to soften the blow of having his fare thrown in his face. Kurt bolted through the doors of the hotel, and took the elevator to the upper levels, to the penthouse floors, where the lavish suites overlooked the city.

Kurt’s heart raced in his chest, and he laughed, thinking how ridiculous this was that he was so excited to see Sebastian after having not seen him for what? An hour or two? But that was par for the course since Kurt and Sebastian had established early in their relationship that spending longer than an hour away from each other was paramount to torture, so they made it a point to never do it whenever possible.

The elevator doors opened, and Kurt bolted down the hall, obsessively checking room numbers as he passed in search of the correct one. When he finally found the right room, he had to take a second to calm his shaking hands so he could use the key card correctly. The first two times swiping it, he failed. He growled at the ornery door lock, shoving the key card through the slot one more time with an exaggerated slowness. The third time was the charm, and the green light blinked. Kurt pushed down on the handle and shoved open the door. He stumbled into the living area of the suite, expecting Sebastian to greet him the moment he walked through the door.

What greeted him instead was about seven dozen lavender roses, set up in vases all over this luxurious room - on every dresser, every end table, every counter surface. On one of the end tables, beside a plush, crimson sofa, sat a pyramid of presents wrapped in festive, sparkly red, pink, and gold paper, complete with coordinating ribbon curls. Kurt bit his lower lip, wondering if Sebastian had wrapped these himself, since they looked so meticulously done. He tried to imagine Sebastian with a pair of scissors, diligently curling yards of ribbon just for him.

As excited and touched as Kurt was by all of it – the room, which was about triple the size of his first loft, and must cost upwards of a thousand dollars to rent just for the day; the roses, each one flawless in their difficult-to-come-by shade; the pile of presents, too pretty to open – he needed Sebastian, so when Sebastian walked in from the bedroom, wrapped in a fluffy white robe, skin and hair wet from a shower, Kurt raced across the room and threw himself into the man's arms.

“Oh, thank God it’s you,” Sebastian said, holding a trembling Kurt tight against him. “You took so long I was concerned that some homeless guy was going to find that key, and then this…” Sebastian gestured with one hand around the room, “could have gotten awkward.”

“I’m sorry,” Kurt said, leaning up to kiss Sebastian on the cheek, along his jaw, skirting away from his mouth, knowing the moment Sebastian’s lips met his he’d forget everything he wanted to say. “I’m so so sorry.”

“What in the world are you sorry for?” Sebastian asked, laughing at Kurt’s urgent and numerous pecks around his face.

“I didn’t think,” Kurt said, “that just because Valentine’s Day means nothing to me that maybe it meant something to you.” Kurt stopped kissing Sebastian to look into his startled eyes. “I am the _worst_ boyfriend ever.”

Sebastian shook his head, lifting Kurt up and wrapping his boyfriend’s legs around his waist. He carried Kurt into the bedroom, getting his fill of Kurt in his arms now that he had the chance.

“You are _not_ the worst boyfriend ever,” Sebastian said, emphasizing his words with slow, sensual kisses. “You’re absolutely right. We don’t need a day to dictate how or when we show our love for each other.” Sebastian nibbled Kurt’s lower lip, and then tossed him on the bed. Kurt dropped out of Sebastian’s arms with a yelp. “I just chose to do it today…” Sebastian crawled over Kurt’s body, straddling his hips, trapping Kurt beneath him. “With roses…and presents…and clearance chocolate…”

“What?” Kurt chuckled into Sebastian’s mouth. Sebastian reached over to the bedside table and grabbed a brown bottle, presenting it to Kurt the way a waiter would a vintage wine. Kurt took the bottle, noting with a smile the red clearance sticker in the upper corner. He didn’t need to read the label, however, to know what it was – Magic Shell Chocolate Syrup.

Kurt looked up at Sebastian, eyes wide as Sebastian slipped open the tie at his waist and dropped the robe, gloriously naked underneath.

“I thought we could have dessert first,” Sebastian said with a devilish grin. He popped the lid on the bottle in Kurt’s hands. “If you’re stumped where to begin, I could give you a suggestion.”

 


	73. Behind Closed Doors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, I needed a break and wrote this drabble. It’s a second drabble for the prompt ‘ghost’. The first time, if you’ll remember, I wrote what I thought was an inspired three part story called 'The Muse' which some of you thought was depressing.
> 
> So, here’s another, shorter, open-ended story. Let’s see if you all like this one :p

Sebastian walked by the doors every morning and evening on his way to prayer. In the whole of his village, the doors of this once glorious but now run-down, abandoned house were the most magnificent, the most ornate. They were made of solid gold and laden with tiles tooled from all manner of precious gems, all intertwined with mother of pearl. Tempting as the doors were, it was considered a sin to disturb them, and there were even legends throughout the village that the doors carried a deadly curse. Robbers and thieves from other villages, hearing tales of the opulent doors, came from miles around to try and loot the beautiful stones, only to be found dead at the threshold, or to disappear entirely, family members arriving from time to time to search for them in vain.

Most people in the village shuffled quickly by the doors, not even bothering to look at them lest they catch the curse and carry it home, but not Sebastian. He stopped in front of the doors every day. He said blessings to them, and when no one else was looking, he would try the handles, a feat which most people believed was paramount to a death sentence.

It didn’t matter. The doors were always locked.

Sebastian walked almost a mile out of his way to pass by the doors. He didn’t know why, but from the first moment he laid eyes on them he felt a connection to them. In a strange, inexplicable way he felt that his destiny lay behind those doors. He simply needed to find a way to get to it.

Thirteen long years he spent passing by the doors, day and night, pushing on the handle, hoping each time that they would swing open for him and reveal their secrets. Now at the age of seventeen, considered a man in his village, he was preparing to wed a spouse chosen by his parents, to settle down, to start a family and take over his father’s shop, to live as a merchant and die as a merchant – his whole life planned from birth to death without his having a single word to say about it.

The square was dark and quiet, the hour late. He had stayed at temple far longer than anyone – even longer than the priests. They paid him no mind, extinguishing the candles around him and leaving the door unlocked, knowing eventually he would wander home on his own. The moon shown down on the glittering gold handles as he passed by the doors, and Sebastian sighed. He almost considered passing by without stopping. Whatever lay beyond those doors obviously wasn’t waiting for him to discover it, but as he tried to walk away he felt that pull that always came with struggling to ignore what he felt belonged to him and him alone.

He stopped and turned, deciding that this was the last time. He would try the doors which wouldn’t open, and he would finally say goodbye to whatever it was he thought he was meant to find.

Sebastian stood before the doors, the silver light of the moon at his back, the gold of the doors reflecting in his eyes as he wrapped his fingers around the handle.

The doors felt light for some reason, and Sebastian’s heart stopped pounding in his chest. He knew without moving another inch that this time the doors would swing open. He pushed on the doors gently, and they gave way with a sound like a long drawn out sigh, as if the doors themselves were holding their breath for decades waiting for Sebastian to arrive at just this moment. A strong wind rushed out, cold and fresh, swirling around his body and drawing him into the house with it. The moment he stepped through the doorway, the gold doors shut behind him. With the sound of the locks clicking, tumblers falling back into place, Sebastian became afraid, remembering all the men who trespassed here and were never seen again.

He turned back toward the doors, searching for an escape; but a voice, high and clear and more felt than heard, begged him to turn back around.

 _‘Please. Please don’t go, Sebastian,’_ the voice pleaded.

Sebastian turned around, feeling oddly at ease with that voice lingering in his mind.

“Who’s there?” he whispered, not wanting to raise his voice since this place, broken and ruined as it was, was still considered sacred ground. “Who are you? How do you know my name?”

The darkness in the room shimmered, like waves of light off an unseen pool of water were reflecting off the very air. It shifted and changed, captured the light and sucked in the darkness around it, until it became the image of a person – a man, tall and lithe with pale, ghostly white skin and eyes like sapphire prisms, twinkling with laughter, clouded by sorrow, filled to the brim with a thousand and one bittersweet memories and forgotten promises.

The man felt familiar, but only the way a dream feels familiar because you’ve had it so many times before that your mind accepts it as real – even though rationally you know it’s only a fantasy.

“Sebastian, my love,” the apparition said, drawing itself close until Sebastian could feel the cold aura surround him like an embrace. “My name is Kurt…and I’ve been waiting here for you…”


	74. Private Dancer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rachel gets Kurt a job as a waiter for one night at a gay strip club in order to gain experience for a role he’s going to play, when Sebastian finds him and decides he’ll pay anything to get Kurt to give him a lap dance. (Warning for simulated sex acts and masturbation)

The music is too loud.

The strobe light, slicing chaotically through the dark, grazing the crowd, is way too bright; and the air around them smells repulsively like cheap cologne and old sex.

Kurt sniffs the air and makes a disgusted face, entirely unconcerned with hiding his revulsion. He turns to Rachel with narrow, disapproving eyes.

“I hate you, Rachel Barbra Berry.”

“No you don’t,” she says with a giggle and a playful slap. Kurt rolls his eyes at her disgusting giddiness.

“I don’t understand why _you’re_ so happy,” Kurt comments, sweeping his eyes around the crowded club, the hairs on the back of his neck rising at the sensation of inebriated stares watching him from the shadows. He can’t imagine _why_ considering the armor he has on – a black, ankle length, shapeless coat that leaves everything to the imagination. “You’re not the one who has to work here.”

“I’m happy for  _you_.” Rachel tugs on Kurt’s sleeve, bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet like a hyper toddler. “I mean, look at this place! It’s so gritty, so earthy. It’s so…so dirty and  _real_.”

“How come these places always smell like stale beer and sweat?” Kurt asks, gently prying the wrinkled arm of his coat out of Rachel’s grasp to keep her from yanking the fabric out of shape.

“Because everyone is drinking beer and sweating is my guess,” Rachel says with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Now give me your coat.” She waves grabby hands in Kurt’s face, looking at him expectantly.

Kurt shakes his head, backing subconsciously away and wrapping the coat tighter around him, reluctant to take it off in front of these men, who are already looking at Kurt like a lion would eye an elderly, one-legged gazelle. If he takes off his coat with the next to nothing he’s wearing underneath, he might as well lay himself out naked on the bar, cover himself in tequila and pretzels, and yell, “Happy Hour! Come and get it!”

“This is the part about acting I _love_!” Rachel jabbers, ignoring Kurt’s discomfort and undoing the buttons when he makes no move to disrobe. “Researching the role, really getting into the mindset of a character, discovering their motives, ripping them from the pages of the script and bringing them to life.”

Rachel wrestles the coat from Kurt’s shoulders, and Kurt yields out of fear that his freakishly strong, hobbit-sized friend might split the shoulder seams of his Burberry trench. Without it, the room is strikingly colder, and he feels exponentially more vulnerable. Goose bumps raise all over his exposed skin, which happens to be the majority of his body. Beneath his coat, Kurt wears nothing but his work uniform, if anyone can call a skimpy, skin-tight pair of gold Spandex boy-cut shorts a _uniform_. Kurt fights the urge to wind is arms around his shivering torso, or wrench the coat back out of Rachel’s arms, split seams be damned, and cover himself up again.

“I’m all for realism in researching a role,” Kurt says, self-consciously inching down the legs of his shorts, hoping to get them to cover more skin, “but this is ridiculous. I mean, I’m supposed to be a cocktail waiter in a gay bar. You got me a job at a strip club.”

“A  _gay_  strip club,” Rachel emphasizes. “Here…” She rifles through her purse and pulls out a travel-sized bottle of baby oil.

“You are not oiling me up, Rachel Berry!” Kurt cries, batting her away. “I am not _Sam_! Are you planning on pimping me off, too? Wh-who the hell are you right now!?”

Rachel shrugs, stowing the bottle back in her bag. “I just figured, while you’re here, you might as well make some decent tips.”

A low wolf-whistle, followed by a drawled, “ _Hot damn_ ,” catch Kurt’s attention. He turns, coming face to face with a gruff, older man. A lurid grin splits the man’s thick, cracked lips, while brown eyes, the whites yellowed from a lifetime of smoking, brazenly roam Kurt’s body.

“Your little friend over there was right,” the man says, approaching the two of them with open arms. “You  _are_  sexy as shit.”

Kurt shoots an icy glare at Rachel. She shakes her head, leaning in close.

“He’s paraphrasing,” she whispers.

“Oh. Okay,” Kurt replies with tense sarcasm.

The man keeps his arms open wide when he stops in front of them, as if he’s about to hug them both, but his hands hover, not quite touching. Even without the contact, Kurt can still feel his skin crawl.

“This is Larry,” Rachel points out, finally having the sense to look repulsed herself at the middle-age man’s obvious leer. “He owns  _The Platinum Club_.”

Larry grabs Kurt’s hand unexpectedly, pulling him too close for Kurt’s comfort. He lifts the ensnared hand to his mouth and places a sloppy kiss on it, grazing Kurt’s skin with the uneven edge of his teeth.

“Sexy as shit,” the man repeats with a growl.

Kurt wants to vomit. He bites his tongue to keep from mentioning that being called _sexy as shit_ is not exactly a compliment.

“Now, now, now, Lare,” a younger, less creepy, and more sober sounding man from behind the bar intervenes, “don’t frighten off another waiter. I’m short handed over here as it is.”

Larry sneers at the intrusion, but hands Kurt over, slapping him on the ass before he slinks back off to wherever he originally materialized from. Kurt yelps, covering his rear with protective hands, rubbing his sore cheek.

“Unfortunately, you’ll get used to it,” the bartender sympathizes. “My name is Ryan, by the way.”

“Kurt.” Kurt offers Ryan his hand and Ryan shakes it. Then, Ryan offers Kurt a bottle of Purell for his violated hand.

“Oh, God. _Thank you_ ,” Kurt says, dousing his skin and scrubbing it raw.

“No problem,” Ryan says. “I stock it by the gallon back here. Come on.” Ryan gestures with a nod of his head toward the other side of the bar. “I’ll introduce you to the rest of the sore-ass club.”

Kurt laughs, flat and humorless, opening his mouth to comment on the accuracy of that horrid nickname, when a disheveled man reeking of whiskey stumbles between them on his way to the exit. He spots Kurt and grins. Sucking in a breath through gapped teeth, a breath that he probably meant to be a whistle, he pinches Kurt hard on the non-slapped cheek, tripping past and disappearing down the entryway before a stunned Kurt has time to react.

“Are you kidding me!?” Kurt spins around, turning on Rachel with annoyance and humiliation in his eyes, and she at least has the decency to look genuinely sorry for getting him stuck in this mess. If Kurt didn’t genuinely need the experience, if he didn’t really want this part with every ounce of his being, he would grab his coat and leave. Instead, he takes a deep, meditative breath, and lets it out through pursed lips.

“One night,” he says, raising a finger to emphasize his point. “But tomorrow, I’m done. And then I’m calling OSHA.”

Rachel chokes on a laugh as she watches her friend maneuver through tables full of drunk or getting-there customers, eying him hungrily, both predators and prey sizing him up. Rachel mutters a prayer under her breath for Kurt’s safety before passing his coat to an attendant at the door and leaving the club, heading for the lonely comfort of home.

Someone else in the room, sitting with a group of rowdy friends in the V.I.P. section, spots Kurt, his green eyes widening with surprise, and then shining with the beginnings of an inspired idea.

***

Sebastian can hardly believe his eyes when he reads the text he receives from Hunter.

_To Sebastian:_

 

_You know that Hummel guy you always had a hard-on for? He’s working down at the Platinum Club, and you should see what he’s wearing! #hothothot_

_To Hunter:_

 

_What the fuck are you doing in a gay strip club? #notremotelybicuriousmyhairyballs_

_To Sebastian:_

 

_Fucking forget that, asshole! If you want a chance to get your boner on, get down here NOW!_

Sebastian doesn’t send a reply. He throws on jeans and a polo, and hops in the first cab he can find, paying the driver an extra fifty bucks to ignore the traffic lights. When Sebastian arrives at _The Platinum Club_ , he discovers that Hunter and his crew had already cleared out long before, and he thinks he might be the victim of another one of Hunter’s stupid pranks. After high school graduation, when Hunter found out that Sebastian had a thing for Kurt during a drunken game of _Truth or Dare_ , his greatest past time was sending Sebastian all over the city on wild goose chases for men that he thought might be Kurt Hummel.

To date, Sebastian has been punked an astounding 22 times.

Sebastian knows rationally that this is most likely another prank, but a strange sense of naïve hope where Kurt is concerned sends him racing across town. In his defense, Hunter did send him a blurry cell phone photo this time, and as far as Sebastian could see, the man serving drinks and wearing the gold _fuck me_ shorts looks enough like Kurt to make the trip worthwhile.

Even if Kurt isn’t here, maybe Sebastian can hook up with the waiter in the picture.

Sebastian breezes through the line outside and, with the help of a crisp fifty dollar bill, slips past the bouncer at the door. He hands his coat off to a pair of waiting hands, not sure whether they belong to the coat-check girl or some random drunk person, but he doesn’t care. He scans the room and spots Kurt almost immediately, practically naked, with the exception of those felonious shorts, his body so sinfully cut that Sebastian can count the muscles in his arms, abs, and legs. Sebastian licks his lips. God have mercy, did Captain Gay Face fill out! Kurt sashays through the crowd gathered around the catwalk, stealing the attention of the customers who came to gawk at the pole dancers, much to the dismay of the strippers losing their tips to a waiter.

“Like what you see?” a smooth voice with the hint of an accent murmurs in Sebastian’s ear. Sebastian feels himself grinning as he watches Kurt bend over to take drink orders, skillfully sidling away from hands reaching out to palm his ass.

“Yes, I do,” Sebastian answers without turning his eyes away from Kurt. Who would have known that incredible body was hiding under those hideous girl clothes he wore back in high school?

“Well, any of our gentleman are available for a private lap dance,” the faceless man propositions.

“Any?” Sebastian asks, wringing his hands, practically salivating.

“Yes, sir,” the voice purrs. “What’s your pleasure?”

“The waiter,” Sebastian says, imagining that Kurt’s dance card might already be overflowing with the names of men vying for an hour with him as their private dancer, “in the gold shorts.”

“Uh…” The voice stammers for a second, hedging an answer, “I don’t think he’s available.”

“You said _any_ of your gentlemen,” Sebastian reminds him. “He’s the one I want.”

“Well, he’s kind of special…”

“I know,” Sebastian interrupts. “That’s why I’m willing to pay double.”

“That’s…uh…” Sebastian hears the man reconsider, trying to find a way around whatever obstacle would keep Kurt from giving Sebastian a lap dance at double the rate, but he still hesitates. “I’m not sure if…”

“Triple,” Sebastian offers.

The man behind him sputters.

“I wish I could,” he says, and Sebastian laughs when he hears the man whine in frustration for having to turn down three hundred dollars for one lap dance, “but Kurt…”

“Look,” Sebastian says, turning and facing a short Latino man wearing a gaudy aubergine suit, with a gel-helmet to rival Blaine Anderson, “I am willing to pay an awful lot of money to get _that_ man in my lap for an hour, so why don’t you go talk to him and see what you can do to make that happen.”

The man smiles, showing off a bottom grill of faux-diamond teeth.

“Of course, sir,” he says. “Right away.”

The man shuffles off to catch Kurt on his way back to the bar. Sebastian watches the man whisper to Kurt, gesturing wildly with his hands as he explains the situation. Kurt jerks back, stepping away from the man, and shakes his head. Sebastian sees the determined expression on Kurt’s face. Sebastian knows that look, and he holds his breath, hoping that Mr. Aubergine Suit can persuade Kurt to change his mind. They talk some more, and Kurt’s eyes go wide. His head snaps up. The man points in Sebastian’s direction. Kurt turns, and for the first time, their eyes lock. Kurt squints, peering hard, the look in his eyes dark, but then Kurt smiles – not a _happy to see you again after so many years_ smile, but rather one that says loud and clear _I hate your ever living guts and will do anything to make you pay_.

Kurt nods, and Sebastian hears the man in the aubergine suit say, “Wonderful! Wonderful!” He smiles and claps, rushing back over to Sebastian while Kurt hands off his tray to another server and trails behind.

“He will do it for six times the rate,” the man tells Sebastian, “if you’re still interested…”

“I’m still interested,” Sebastian says, reaching his hand into his back pocket and pulling out his wallet. Kurt’s eyes never stray from Sebastian’s face as he pulls out a gold AmEx card and hands it over.

“Wonderful!” the man chirps, plucking the card from Sebastian’s fingers and squirreling away.

“Well,” Kurt says, his voice unimpressed and deceptively polite, “I guess I’m yours.”

Sebastian’s smile dips - those four words sharp, cutting, and painfully untrue, except for this small block of time.

For the next hour, Kurt is most definitely his.

***

“Kurt Hummel,” Carlos calls out in a pseudo-Puerto Rican accent that Kurt is 90% sure isn’t authentic. Kurt can’t help noticing that he sounds more chipper than he has all evening. “Kurt Hummel, I have a customer for you.”

Kurt turns, confused by the man’s use of the word _customer_. Hasn’t Kurt been serving customers for the past three hours?

“What do you mean?” Kurt asks, sliding a gin and tonic to the man seated at his left, swiveling his hips to avoid an ass grab.

“There is a man who is very interested in getting a lap dance…from _you_.”

Kurt can sense the man’s hope-tinged trepidation as Carlos fidgets, rolling on his heels, hands clasped in front of him with thumbs twiddling. Kurt knows why. Kurt had said at the start of his shift that under no circumstances was he available for lap dances. Some of the waiters do it for extra cash; a lot of them don’t. It was made clear to Kurt that it was his choice.

His choice was _no_ then, and his choice is _no_ now.

“Uh-uh, Carlos,” Kurt says, making a straight shot for the bar. “I said no.”

“B-but, this man wants _you_ ,” Carlos explains. “He wants you real bad. He’s willing to pay triple.”

Kurt stops, turning back to Carlos and tilting his head skeptically.

“Triple?”

“Yes,” Carlos says, encouraged now that he has Kurt’s attention. “Triple. He says he’ll pay _anything_ for a dance from you.”

“Who is this man?” Kurt asks, not completely convinced and not eager to be stuck with a drunk, handsy, over-reaching asshole who plans on stiffing him at the end of the night. “Is he cute?”

“Oh, a very handsome young man,” Carlos says, searching the crowd. He spots the man and points. Kurt follows Carlos’s finger where it lands on a single face, and sees someone he never expected to see again in his life.

Sebastian Smythe.

A more mature, better built version of Dalton Academy’s criminal chipmunk, but with the same sarcastic smirk and disarming, albeit clever, green eyes.

Kurt doesn’t know how Sebastian found him in New York, especially here of all places, but he’s sure that his promise to overcompensate Carlos for what is normally a hundred dollar lap dance is another attempt by Sebastian to make Kurt’s life miserable.

Through months of suffering Sebastian’s torment, Kurt had envisioned dozens of ways he could get revenge – cutting his brake line, reporting him to the IRS for fraud, replacing his underwear with itchy, ill-fitting polyester blends. Kurt didn’t get the chance to go through with any of those, and he always regretted not getting some kind of retribution. This might be his chance. Maybe Sebastian has changed, but so has Kurt. He’s become stronger, more confident, and if the last three hours have proven anything after his bumpy start it’s that here - dressed in his tiny shorts that showcase his new, sexier physique - he has power. Staring into Sebastian’s eyes, already blown wide with desire, desire for  _him_ , Kurt is sure he can use this power to his advantage.

Kurt Hummel is a baby penguin no more, and he’s more than ready to prove it.

“Tell him I’ll do it for six times the rate.” Kurt smiles like a tomcat, ready to sharpen his claws on Sebastian’s chest.

“S-s-six times!?” Carlos stutters nervously. “He won’t…”

“Yes he will,” Kurt says, confident that he has Sebastian dead to rights. “And don’t worry. He’s good for it.”

Carlos shrugs. “If you say so.” He returns back to Sebastian with a skip in his step and a counteroffer in hand.

Sebastian couldn’t care less how much it costs to get his hour alone with Kurt. He would have paid more if that’s what it took.

“This way,” Kurt says, leading Sebastian through the crowded club, customers clearing a path as they pass. Some glare at Sebastian with deep-seated envy, and Sebastian’s sure he isn’t the first man to proposition Carlos for an hour of Kurt’s time.

He’s just the first who has enough money to pay for it.

Sebastian leans over Kurt’s shoulder so he can whisper in his ear.

“I wouldn’t have spent so much time picturing you in a Lima Bean apron if I knew the image of you in next to nothing was so… _mouthwatering_.”

Kurt rolls his eyes, but adds more sway to his hips nonetheless.

“Is that a line?” Kurt tuts in disgust. “Does that actually work on some guys?”

“You’d be surprised,” Sebastian replies.

Kurt shakes his head. After the doozies he’s heard tonight, he wouldn’t be surprised at all.

Kurt sees the hallway to the private rooms up ahead, and his palms start to sweat - honestly and profusely sweat. Three hours he’s spent flirting and lobbing suggestive remarks, bantering back and forth with men who never had a chance, and here he is, leading the one man he can conceivably consider his arch nemesis into a private room for a lap dance.

Kurt suddenly feels that he might be a bit out of his depth.

Fuck his foolish pride. Kurt Hummel, ex-baby penguin, is about to make a colossal ass out of himself.

“So, what are the rules then?” Sebastian asks, and of course, he’d know there are rules. This probably isn’t his first lap dance. Kurt panics, wondering if there’s a chance for him to get out of this - pretend he has food poisoning, slip and break an ankle. Or maybe he’ll get lucky and a giant sinkhole will open up in the floor and swallow him whole.

Sinkholes happen in New York, right?

“ _I_ can touch _you_ , but _you_ can’t touch _me_ ,” Kurt says, parting the curtain to the private room and ushering Sebastian inside.

The room is more of a converted corner booth, left over from a time when this particular building was a restaurant acting as a front for a speak-easy. The mirror-covered walls surround a monstrous, red vinyl, wrap-around bench, with a low, sturdy table for the dancers to stand on and use as a stage.

“How do they know if I touch you?” Sebastian asks.

“There are cameras everywhere,” Kurt replies, pointing to the mirrors behind the vinyl bench, then swinging his arm around to indicate that everywhere _means_ everywhere.

Sebastian flops down on the bench and watches with amusement as Kurt orients himself with the room. Sebastian knows, on some level, that Kurt has never done this before. Oh, maybe once or twice he played around with Blaine, but nothing like this. Sebastian feeds off Kurt’s tension - the way he toys with the legs of his shorts, the way his eyes dart away to the safety of the hidden cameras when Sebastian stares, and Sebastian decides to up the ante. He reclines on the vinyl bench, draping one arm over the back, his other hand palming his cock, shamelessly watching Kurt with a gaze that peels the gold shorts off of Kurt’s hips, envisioning the ass hiding beneath.

“So if _you_ can touch _me_ ,” Sebastian says, working his hips up and down to get friction against his hand, “what are you allowed to do?”

“I can kiss you,” Kurt says, grabbing fretfully at his slipping confidence. “I can jerk you off, but _I_ get to decide.” He’s firm on that final point, and Sebastian nods, playfulness for the moment pushed aside.

“Gotcha,” Sebastian says with a nod.

Sebastian continues to move his hand deliberately over the crotch of his jeans, rolling his head back on his shoulders. Kurt looks on with fascination. All this time, all these years, he never imagined he would see Sebastian like this – turned on, masturbating, while waiting for Kurt to seduce him. It’s surreal and exciting, and when Sebastian arches his back and moans, Kurt can feel his own cock respond, growing, throbbing, craving more of that sound, wanting to be a part of Sebastian making it.

Sebastian looks at Kurt and his hand stops moving.

“I’m paying for you to dance, princess,” he says, “not for you to watch me jack off. Otherwise, you should be paying me.”

“Fuck you,” Kurt snaps before he realizes his mistake.

“Is that extra?” Sebastian asks. “Because I have plenty more money to spend.”

Kurt steps up onto the table, and he hears Sebastian shift. Sebastian sits forward on the bench, elbows resting on his knees, chin propped in his hands.

Kurt tries to find his center, imagines himself alone in his room, dancing, trying so hard to be sexy before he understood what _sexy_ really meant. He concentrates on the muted music pounding outside the booth in the club. He finds the rhythm, attaches to it, and once he can block out the eyes staring into him, waiting for him to do something, _anything_ , he starts to move.

With his eyes shut tight, he inhabits his own private world of darkness, where he’s free to be whatever he wants to be, and right now he wants to be alluring, devastating, the man of Sebastian’s dreams. He hears a gasp, and the sound almost makes him falter. It would be so much easier doing this if he had ever actually fantasized about Sebastian.

Then his mind spins, and he feels a cold sweat break out over his skin.

_Oh my God!_

There was one.

One night, after Blaine had admitted to cheating and Kurt had gotten a little drunk to numb the pain, he had a dream - a wet dream about Sebastian. It started off with the simple thought of getting back at Blaine, and how perfect Sebastian would be in that capacity, since he would probably be an amazing fuck, and Kurt imagined that angry revenge sex seemed like something he’d be into.

Rachel wasn’t home, so Kurt put on some loud music, something with a bass line that vibrated through his blood, to add to the feel and erase some of the shame. He stripped off his clothes piece by piece, touched his own body with firm, aggressive hands, cupping the nape of his neck to simulate Sebastian grabbing a hold of him, kissing him hard, prying his lips apart with his tongue until Kurt gave in and let himself be kissed.

Kurt’s body moves on its own as he locks on to the scintillating thought of Sebastian having his way with him, taking him almost forcefully. Kurt’s hips twist, mimicking the sway of his body the way it would move against Sebastian’s skin. He threads shaking fingers through his hair and pulls, exposing the long line of his pale neck, beckoning, inviting.

On the vinyl bench where Kurt has yet to spare a glance, Sebastian bites his lip hard.

But Sebastian wants more – much, much more.

“That’s real nice and all” - Sebastian clears his throat to keep his voice from failing him, or worse, turning into a moan when Kurt bends over in front of him, folding himself in half, then opens his eyes for the first time to gaze up at Sebastian from between his ankles - “but lap dance means on my lap, princess.” Sebastian pats his thighs. “Up here.”

Kurt stares at Sebastian’s lap like a deer paralyzed in the headlights of an oncoming train. Kurt wonders if he can go through with this, play out this fantasy while straddling Sebastian’s body. Then again, how is it he has managed this long without his heart, since it’s sprinting so quickly in his chest, he can’t even feel it beating?

But Kurt has no intention of backing down.

He isn’t going to let Sebastian win.

Kurt hops down off the table and walks over to Sebastian. He puts a foot on the bench, pulling himself up until he’s standing one foot on each side of Sebastian’s lap. He switches feet, turning around, and sinks slowly to his knees, giving Sebastian an excellent view of his rear on the way down.

“Why are you facing away from me, beautiful?” Sebastian pouts when Kurt settles an inch above his lap.

“You paid me to dance for you,” Kurt says, swiveling his hips, his thighs grazing the denim of Sebastian’s jeans, “nothing says I have to look at your meerkat face while I do it.”

Kurt closes his eyes again and transports back to that place in the dream where Sebastian laid him down on his bed and rutted against him, sucking purple marks into his neck, hard enough to sting but not enough to hurt, tingling down his spine and pooling in his groin.

Sebastian calling him _beautiful_ definitely doesn’t ruin that image at all.

Sebastian would have preferred to stare into Kurt’s haunting blue eyes, hoping to see him come apart, even a fraction, but this is just as good. In a way, it’s even better. So many times Sebastian dreamt of this – Kurt straddling him, riding him, lost to lust and abandon, using his body for his own pleasure.

Kurt doesn’t touch Sebastian, but Sebastian can still feel his heat through his clothes, radiating over him. Kurt raises his arms over his head, bouncing up and down in Sebastian’s lap mere inches from where Sebastian needs him. Kurt’s body is so close, writhing, his muscles, his skin, his gorgeous ass, so fucking close, but invisible barriers keep getting in the way. There’s still a wall of bitterness and resentment that Sebastian needs to strip away if he even stands a chance of anything happening with Kurt. Sebastian would give anything to rake his fingers through them and tear them down.

“You don’t belong in this place,” Sebastian says, his voice hoarse, quivering as Kurt starts undulating again, sinking down lower, his ass barely brushing Sebastian’s erection where it strains against his jeans. The only thing missing is that sweet, singular voice of Kurt’s moaning Sebastian’s name.

Kurt turns his head to peek over his shoulder, come-hither eyes shining in the glow of the swirling lights that surround them.

“Well, you came here and you found me here,” Kurt says. “So, in what place do you think I belong?”

Kurt leans back, letting his dream mix with reality, baiting Sebastian. His body moves like a wave, crashing all around, and Sebastian can’t breathe, drowning beneath the beauty of Kurt’s skin, the unmatched brilliance of his eyes, and his all too fascinating mouth that whispers silent promises and seems to beg Sebastian to drink him in.

Sebastian swallows, tongue slipping along his dry lips, wetting them as they try to chase Kurt’s mouth and take a taste.

Kurt’s body is feral in the way it moves - feline, sinuous, bending and twisting in ways Sebastian only dreamed. Kurt isn’t a stripper, he’s a dancer, and that fact turns Sebastian on even more. Kurt taunts him, tempts him, running his hands over his own body, slipping his middle finger between his lips and sucking hard while his free hands snakes down between his legs, stroking himself through his gold shorts, knuckles dangerously close to Sebastian’s crotch. Sebastian digs his nails into the vinyl bench, his sanity splitting into pieces, threads snapping apart left and right. As much as he wants to flip Kurt over and take him right here, he doesn’t want to risk being tossed out before his hour is up.

“Sebastian?” Kurt whispers. “Tell me. What place do you think I belong?”

Kurt’s sultry countertenor is the lynch pin that pulls Sebastian completely apart. That voice ghosts over his skin, spirals around him, and Sebastian shudders. Kurt is controlling him, commanding him, and with a snap of his hips, makes him cum without a single touch to Sebastian’s body.

“Mine,” Sebastian groans, hips stuttering up, no longer caring how much trouble he might get into. “You belong with me.”

Kurt stops moving but it doesn’t matter. The damage is done. As Sebastian reels from his orgasm, his mind scolds him for his stupidity.

_Why? Why did he have to say that?_

Kurt scrabbles off Sebastian’s lap, putting a safe distance between them.

“You went over your hour,” Kurt says, focusing on the clock instead of the bliss on Sebastian’s face. “Carlos might charge you.”

“I don’t care,” Sebastian mutters, a goofy grin plastered to his face. “It was worth every penny.”

Kurt nods, and suddenly he doesn’t feel powerful anymore. He doesn’t feel satisfied with his revenge.

What revenge? What did he actually do? He got Sebastian off, that’s what he did. It’s what Sebastian paid for.

But what was all that bullshit about Kurt _belonging_ with him?

And why did it feel so good to hear?

“Well, you can clean up in here,” Kurt says, backing out of the room. “There’s no charge for that. They’ll have your credit card for you at the bar.”

The last few words are tossed over Kurt’s shoulder as he makes his way back to the main room. Sebastian, noticing how Kurt transformed from sex kitten back to ice queen in record time, leaps from the bench and takes off after him.

“Kurt! Kurt! Let me talk to you.”

Kurt jogs a few more steps towards the bar, but then stops out of morbid curiosity, giving Sebastian a chance to catch up.

“Kurt! What did I do?”

Kurt turns and glares at Sebastian, his eyes hardening to a steely gray.

“What was all that shit about?” Kurt yells. “You come in here, acting like same old Sebastian Smythe, asshole extraordinaire, throwing around money to get what you want, and then you say I _belong_ with you? Who the hell do you think you are? What…what gives you the right?”

“Look,” Sebastian says, “I’m sorry, but you don’t understand. I…I needed to get close to you, alright? _Fuck!_ ” Sebastian tilts his head up and runs a hand through his sweaty hair. “I was…I was just looking for an excuse to talk to you.”

Kurt crosses his arms defensively over his chest and takes a step closer.

“Then next time,” Kurt snarls, “order a _drink_ from me instead of a lap dance.”

***

Barely an hour before the end of his shift, Kurt calls it quits. He’s had enough. The customers in the bar aren’t all that bad, especially as the night winds down and the alcohol settles in, making everyone tired and mellow, but he can’t get Sebastian out of his mind.

He started out hating him, seething for getting him into that lounge, for playing into his hands, for grinding like a whore in his lap, thinking that having an effect on him and making him lose control was wiping the slate clean between them, but it didn’t.

It made Sebastian a winner in this game between them one more time.

Kurt could have written him off. Excused him as a mistake and tried to go on with his night if it wasn’t for the last thing he said –  _you belong with me_.

How could Kurt ever _belong_ with Sebastian? Sebastian had nothing but loathing and contempt for him, and that door swung both ways, so in what universe did Sebastian believe they _belonged_ together?

No universe that Kurt lived in, of that he was certain.

So, how come he feels so empty now that Sebastian is gone?

Kurt doesn’t want to think about it anymore. He wants to get home, soak in a hot bath, and forget that tonight ever happened.

He cashes out, collects his tips, grabs his coat, and skips out before he has to say a personal goodbye to Larry. He speeds down the entryway, not bothering to button up his coat in his haste to be out of _The Platinum Club_. The bouncer pushes the door open for him and a blast of freezing cold air hits him. He shivers so violently it hurts, but he welcomes a breath of air that isn’t accompanied by the stench of desperation.

He takes the steps two at a time, focusing on his goal of lavender scented bubble bath and Lana del Rey on shuffle on his iPod, when he discovers his night might be far from over.

Leaning against a street lamp, hands stuffed in his pockets, eyes trained on the door, Sebastian stands, waiting for him.

Kurt stops in his tracks at the sight of him, exhaustion bearing down. His first instinct is to tell Sebastian to fuck off, then storm away in true diva fashion, but in spite of himself, he starts sauntering toward him, like he had expected him to be standing out there waiting for him all along.

“What the hell are you still doing here?” Kurt asks, not willing to let him off so easily.

“I thought, maybe, we could talk about that drink,” Sebastian replies.

“My shift’s over,” Kurt says, tying the belt of his trench coat and pulling it tight, not bothering with the buttons. “I’m not serving drinks anymore tonight.”

 _Or any other night_ , he neglects to say.

“I was thinking, maybe, I could buy you a drink?” Sebastian’s eyes no longer burn, his smile sweet and sheepish, and even though Kurt’s not thrilled to admit it, that shy, unassuming smile makes winged creatures flutter around in his stomach.

Kurt stares up at the sky, biding his time and weighing his options before he gives Sebastian an answer.

“Alright,” Kurt sighs dramatically, pretending to sound extraordinarily put out. “Just one though.”

Sebastian offers Kurt his arm, and Kurt takes it, letting Sebastian lead him down the street. He side-eyes Sebastian’s face, watching his shy smile turn into a full-fledged grin, and Kurt is reminded of the hour he spent grinding in Sebastian’s lap.

“And dinner?” Sebastian presses, his grin morphing back into his trademark smirk as he adds, “I’m sure you’re famished after all that  _hard_  work.”

“Now you’re pushing it, Smythe,” Kurt says, moving a hair closer to steal Sebastian’s warmth, Sebastian moving closer at the same time when he feels Kurt tremble. “Now you’re pushing it.”

 


	75. Waiting to Become Ghosts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> HEAVY TRIGGER WARNING! This is a story I wrote because I’m kind of in a mood. Sometimes I write things to get over events, and I share them in the hopes of helping others. That said, this is a short narrative about Kurt struggling to get over sexual assault. It’s an AU where Dave actually raped Kurt (and I apologize to all Karofsy fans. I happen to be a huge Karofsky fan, but for the purposes of this story it was just easy to use him as a scapegoat.) No graphic assault. Mention of Blaine. Warning for drug use and angry/aggressive/comfort sex.

Some days are better than others.

It didn’t start out that way, but time made it easier to bear. Not because time heals all wounds, but because, after enough time goes by, there is more distance between him and the pain. Most days Kurt can push it aside, but that doesn’t make it disappear. There is always a specter of it following him around, always looking over his shoulder. Actually, he’s surprised that no one sees it. He can imagine it, standing huge and imposing, looming in torn back robes, faceless, built up piece by piece with his anger, humiliation, and fear.

The fear is the worst part. It sneaks up on him when he least expects it. It’s with him when he walks backstage in the April Rhodes Auditorium by himself and every creak of the floor puts him on edge. It’s with him when Glee practice runs late and he has to walk across the dark parking lot to his Navigator alone. It’s even with him when he has the house to himself, and the wind outside knocks on his window. Sometimes he hides beneath his comforter until his heart slows back to a normal pace. Once or twice it has driven him into his closet with his cell phone, crying in hysterics, waiting till someone comes home.

Kurt thought it would get better when David was finally arrested. He breathed in deep, the smile that he had locked away lighting up his face like the sun rising back into his life - a shadow of his prior self lured out into the open, his sense of security returning, and his future bright for the first time in months.

It lasted exactly four short days. Four days of bliss. Four days of feeling lighthearted and carefree. Four days until a young woman was attacked in the Breadstix parking lot, another McKinley High School student raped, this time by an entirely different person. A transient. A homeless man passing through, looking for the remains of a hot meal.

That’s when Kurt realized that just because _his_ attacker had been put in jail that there weren’t more rapists out there.

Just because David couldn’t hurt him didn’t mean someone else wouldn’t.

The light went out, the fear returned, and Kurt became a prisoner once more.

Blaine knows. Everyone knows, really. The attack was kept quiet at first, but after David’s arrest, the story of Kurt’s rape and assault was all over the news.

Blaine tries to help. He teaches Kurt to box. They meet in the gym after school and Blaine spars with him, but sometimes, hitting the punching bag isn’t enough. Sometimes he goes after Blaine too hard. Sometimes he wants to hurt him and Kurt doesn’t understand exactly why.

After one particularly violent outburst, which leaves Blaine with a bloody nose and Kurt apologizing through enraged tears, Kurt gets into his Navigator and goes for a drive, circling the city three times before he ends up at The Lima Bean, and has the misfortune of running into Sebastian Smythe. Instead of putting Kurt down on sight like he always does, Sebastian sees the swollen eyes and the tracks of his tears, and buys Kurt a coffee, because apparently the news of his rape reached Westerville, too.

Kurt hates being pitied – by his neighbors, his friends, by students in the halls at school who’ve never even spoken to him before. But pity from Sebastian is literally too much to bear. He wants to run away from Sebastian’s pity, but Sebastian convinces him to stay. That is how Kurt finds out the secret behind Sebastian’s acerbic attitude and his constant sardonicism - the only difference is the man who raped _him_ was a friend of the family, and Sebastian was only thirteen at the time.

From then on, Kurt and Sebastian get together regularly to work through their issues.

Blaine teaches Kurt how to fight, but Sebastian becomes his punching bag.

Blaine is there for Kurt when he needs to be held.

Sebastian is there when he needs more - when he needs to be fucked and fucked hard, fucked till it hurts. Fucked until Sebastian’s cock pounding into his ass, his nails scratching down Kurt’s back, his teeth biting marks into Kurt’s shoulder, help make the scars of David’s violation fade.

Sebastian understands when Kurt cries during sex. He understands when Kurt screams. He gets it when Kurt hits him and curses and tells him he hates him.

Sebastian knows he doesn’t mean it.

Sebastian never thought he had the patience to put someone back together, but for Kurt, he makes an exception.

“You know, it’s never going to really go away,” Sebastian says as they sit together on his bed, naked, Kurt’s eyes red-rimmed from crying and Sebastian’s chest clawed completely raw. “A piece will always be with you.”

“How do you deal with it?” Kurt asks between great heaving sobs, sobs so all-encompassing they burn in his chest and threaten to swallow him up whole.

“Ahhh,” Sebastian says, reaching over to his bedside table and pulling out an elaborate looking pipe - long and thin and beautifully ornate, scrolled and carved out of bone with a tiny cup at the end. “This is a little trick I learned when I was abroad.”

Kurt watches Sebastian curiously as he opens a desiccated looking pod and puts a pinch of something organic from it into the cup. He pulls out a lighter and sets the substance on fire, then blows it out quickly, letting it simmer into small ember.

“What? You smoke weed?” Kurt asks, unimpressed by the plan Sebastian has come up with.

“No, Kurt. Weed is what you smoke when you want to feel good - when you want to be giddy and stupid and carefree. But you and I, our problems will never go away and we will never truly be free.”

“So, what…”

He watches Sebastian suck in through the narrow end, his eyes fluttering shut as he pulls at the pipe and the smoke rushes into his lungs. He sucks in deep and then pulls the pipe away. He holds his breath, his body silent, his face serene, until he can’t hold his breath any longer. His mouth and eyes open and a delicate string of white smoke curls up from his lips.

“It’s opium,” Sebastian explains, passing the pipe over to Kurt, and Kurt, hands shaking, takes it, willing to try anything at this point to make the pain go away. “It doesn’t make you giddy or stupid. Smoke this and you’ll disappear.”

The pipe is light in Kurt’s hands and magical in an artistic way. Someone put a great deal of time and effort into creating it, and Kurt has to appreciate that Sebastian doesn’t do anything in halves. No stained metal spoons or flimsy glass pipes for Sebastian. He went the full nine yards and bought an authentic, probably insanely expensive, opium pipe. Kurt puts the pipe to his lips and Sebastian watches him carefully. Kurt drags on the pipe, expecting to cough and gag the way he sees first-time smokers on television do, but this thin, white smoke slips into his body unnoticed, filling his lungs as unobtrusively as the air around him, as if his body needs this like oxygen to keep going.

Kurt imagines that some people do.

He wonders if he’s about to become one of them.

Kurt closes his eyes and holds his breath, holds it until he feels his body rebel, and when it becomes too much, he lets go. The effect isn’t immediate. Sebastian takes another hit before he sets the pipe down on his table and pulls Kurt into his arms. They settle together against the pillows on the bed and wait for the euphoria to hit.

“So what do we do now?” Kurt asks, curling against Sebastian’s body beneath the safety of the arm wrapped around his shoulders.

“We wait to become ghosts,” Sebastian says slowly, gazing off with dreamy, unfocused eyes into the distance. Kurt begins to feel it, too. His mind starts to disconnect from his body, leaving behind the anxiety, the agony, and the shame. “And in a minute,” Sebastian whispers, low and soft so as not to shatter the spell, “we won’t exist.”


	76. Unlikely Mates

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Werewolf AU - Sebastian wakes up one morning cuffed to a bed with no memory of how he got there, until Kurt shows up with some interesting news. (Warning for mention of mild injuries and bondage.)

Sebastian blinks, his eyelids heavy, bright white light piercing his dilated pupils, shooting daggers to his brain. His entire body is sore, muscles throbbing with an unearthly ache he’s never felt. Every centimeter of skin stings like he was tossed into an industrial shredder. He tries one more time to open his eyes but realizes quickly that it’s not going to happen. He has no desire to get up, but a heavy weight on his hands and feet piques his curiosity. Knowing better than to try and open his eyes again, he pulls at his sore limbs and feels thick leather cuffs binding his wrists and ankles, the sound of a chain clinking every time he moves them.

As his mind becomes more lucid and aware, he tries to assess his situation. He shifts positions slightly, trying to relieve the numbness creeping into his hips and ass, and a slow smile spreads on his face.

He’s lying in a bed, covered by a light sheet, and he’s definitely naked. He shifts one more time to be sure, feeling the soothing cool of Egyptian cotton above and beneath him. He stops moving and tries to concentrate on what exactly he did last night in an effort to figure out where he is right now.

Yesterday was Friday. Normal day at school. Afternoon Lacrosse meet with the Westerville Warriors from that God-awful public school on the other side of town, some hot guy gave him his number, and then…after that, nothing. It’s like the whole evening has been erased from his memory. He doesn’t remember leaving the Dalton campus, doesn’t remember the after party at all, can’t recall when or if he made it back to his dorm room.

Sebastian isn’t all too concerned. He’s blacked out once or twice before. He usually snaps out of the amnesia that goes along with it within twenty or so minutes of waking up.

Still, there’s a peculiar prickling unease swirling in the back of his mind, like maybe this time is different; maybe he’s in a stickier situation than he realizes.

The sound of footsteps causes him to go completely still, as if some hidden instinct is on the alert for danger. It’s off-putting, how the reaction suddenly takes over, but it feels natural at the same time. He can hear the footsteps coming from somewhere above him, louder than they should be for the distance he estimates they are coming from, especially factoring in the thickness of the ceiling above him. He takes a deep breath of the cool morning air. It smells earthy, damp, musty, like he might be underground.

A basement.

Suddenly being cuffed hand and foot to a bed doesn’t sound like too much fun anymore.

The footsteps start getting louder, accompanied this time by muffled voices and the opening and shutting of a door – a door nearby.

The footsteps come closer and Sebastian panics, tugging hard on the cuffs, tossing his head back and forth to clear his vision, not wanting to be blind when he meets his captor face to face.

“It’s okay. Calm down. You’ll hurt yourself.”

The voice that speaks to him is high and soft and familiar; oh, so familiar.

“Kurt?” Sebastian calls into the bright blurriness that he can see with his open eyes.

“Yes, Sebastian,” Kurt responds hesitantly. “It’s me.”

Sebastian wants to laugh. He shouldn’t, but he wants to. Finally the princess has lost his marbles, and now Sebastian is about to be tortured within an inch of his life, but how? Showtunes? Avocado mask? A live reading of that Patti LuPone book he keeps raving with Blaine about? Sebastian should take this more seriously, but even if he is in some sort of mortal danger, he can’t really take Hummel seriously as a kidnapper. Sebastian chuckles, unable to hold it in any longer, and regrets the sound the second he makes it.

“I’m sorry about the headache,” Kurt says wincing, “and the light sensitivity. The more you blink, the faster your vision will clear up.”

Sebastian takes his advice, blinking furiously. His eyelids are uncooperative; his eyes dry, but soon the fuzziness clears and he can see the room he’s in. It’s not much to look at. Besides the bed there seems to be only one other piece of furniture in the whole place; a single wood dresser standing alone in the corner.

It’s the walls that sober Sebastian up in record time.

Plain gray cement walls covered with shackles, chains, cuffs of all sorts, and scratches – deep, long, embedded scratches dug straight into the brick.

Sebastian turns his attention back to Kurt, his green eyes hard and uncompromising.

“How did you get me down here?” Sebastian asks, trying to sound authoritative and in control despite his current condition. “Why did you tie me up?”

“I had to sedate you,” Kurt explains. “You kind of went agro last night. You attacked a police officer. I managed to get you away and I brought you here. I’m sorry about the drugs, but I didn’t want anything bad happening.”

Sebastian tries to make sense of this information, but he can’t.

“I don’t understand,” Sebastian says. “You sedated me? Why did I attack a police officer?” Sebastian takes another look around, trying to find the door to the room, to formulate some sort of escape plan, but he doesn’t see it from his vantage point. He narrows his eyes at Kurt who seems unconcerned by Sebastian’s venomous stare. “What happened last night?”

“Sebastian,” Kurt says, pacing in a path around the bed, “I don’t know how to put this delicately, so I’m just going to say it.” Kurt stops at the head of the bed, grabbing hold of the post for strength. “You’re a werewolf.”

Sebastian stares up at Kurt blankly for a few seconds, blinking twice before exploding into a fit of laughter, groaning when the pain in his head gets intense, but it doesn’t matter – pain or no, he can’t stop.

“You’re shitting me,” Sebastian says. “What kind of prank is this?”

“It’s not a prank,” Kurt insists, the sound of genuine desperation in his voice sending an ice cold tremor down Sebastian’s spine. “You were turned last night. Bitten.”

“By who?” Sebastian rolls his eyes, willing to play along for now, hoping to find a way out of this mess, but something about the mention of being bitten starts to ring disconcerting bells.

“My guess is that captain from the other Lacrosse team,” Kurt says, his words sounding bitter to Sebastian’s ears. “The one you were making out with under the bleachers.”

Sebastian closes his eyes, trying to drudge up more memories from yesterday afternoon. The captain of the Westerville Warriors, the blond with the green eyes and that incredible build. He was aggressive, strong, persistent. Sebastian had a vague recollection of the boy covering his neck in hickeys pretty hardcore.

“Okay,” Sebastian says, opening his eyes again, “let’s say this is true. How do you know so much about it?”

Kurt shifts uncomfortably, starting back on his path around the bed, ending at the foot this time so Sebastian can see him fully. It doesn’t register with Sebastian at first, but the longer he looks at Kurt standing in front of him, face and neck covered completely in chestnut-colored fur, his eyes rounder and wide like a dog’s eyes, the more realization dawns on him.

“Fucking shit!” he screams, launching himself backward, trying to scoot up the bed, but the chains hold him back. Sebastian blinks, and the next time he sees Kurt, the fur is gone; his eyes normal, human eyes, looking down at him with sadness and sympathy.

“It’s alright,” Kurt coos, rushing to his side. “It’s going to be alright.”

“How did you do that?” Sebastian mutters anxiously, struggling against the chains. Kurt touches his arm lightly and Sebastian feels his whole body relax, the reaction so immediate that Sebastian doesn’t even have the wherewithal to question it. “Are you a werewolf?”

“Yes,” Kurt says. “I am.”

“Were you bitten, too?” Sebastian’s voice sounds less frantic and he melts back onto the bed, moving subconsciously closer to Kurt sitting beside him.

“No.” Kurt shakes his head with a weak smile. “I was born this way, which is why I can control it. And you will, too. You’ll learn.”

Sebastian’s eyes darken, his brow knits, confused as to what Kurt means, and why he looks so burdened by the idea of Sebastian coming to terms with his new affliction.

“So, what? Are there support meetings?” Sebastian asks. “Do I have to chart the planets and the stars so I know when not to go out at night? What’s the protocol here?”

“It’s not that simple,” Kurt says, toying with the edge of the sheet, running the soft fabric through his fingers.

“Why?” Sebastian asks with growing dread. “Why is it not that simple?”

“Well, in order to get you back here…to keep you safe,” Kurt adds the last part quickly and with extra emphasis, “measures had to be taken. I had to…”

Sebastian tries to sit up, suddenly feeling vulnerable trapped on his back.

“What, Kurt?” Sebastian stares at Kurt who continues to fiddle with the sheet, not quite able to meet Sebastian’s eyes. “What did you have to do?”

“I kind of had to…lure you back here.”

“And how did you do that?” Sebastian asks, a strong feeling in the pit of his stomach that he’s not going to be happy with the answer.

“I kind of…had sex with you,” Kurt says sheepishly, a red flush creeping up his neck into his cheeks. Sebastian blows out a sigh of relief, dropping back down onto the pillows beneath his head.

“Is that all?” Sebastian laughs. He throws a pointed glance down his naked body covered in the sheet, then looks back at Kurt with a sarcastic smirk. “I kind of assumed that much already. You had me worried there for a moment, Hummel.”

“You don’t understand…”

“I mean, I don’t even remember it, so it can’t have been that good,” Sebastian rambles.

“Sebastian…”

“And don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone,” he continues, heedless of Kurt’s interruptions. “Not that I would want to advertise…”

“Sebastian!” Kurt says firmly, leaning over Sebastian and staring into his eyes. Sebastian obeys instantly. There’s a compulsion in his mind to obey Kurt; a need that fills Sebastian’s entire body, and that feeling of dread pools in the pit of his stomach again. “We’re werewolves, and last night, under the full moon, we mated in our werewolf form.”

Sebastian shakes his head. He’s not sure what Kurt’s trying to tell him, but he’s sure his life as he knows it is over.

Kurt drops his head to Sebastian’s chest and sighs.

“We’re stuck with each other, Sebastian,” Kurt says, his voice sounding as defeated as Sebastian feels. “Werewolves mate for life.”


	77. Wounded but Not Worthless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon prompted ‘Seb with a self-esteem issue’ paired with anon prompt ‘Kurt catches Seb reading poetry’. Dalton AU. Angst. Warnings for symptoms of anxiety.

“I don’t understand why Mr. Pimmins hates me,” Kurt mumbles. “I mean, I’m a straight A-student, I’m head of the literary magazine, and just last week I advised him against wearing that heinous puce tie…”

“What the fuck are you mumbling about, princess?”

Sebastian drops his books down on the desk beside Kurt’s with a loud slam.

Kurt barely acknowledges Sebastian’s presence, scooting his chair an inch or so to the left to avoid his intrusion.

“I’m just trying to figure out what terrible crime I’ve committed that would prompt our teacher to pair me up with you.” Kurt pulls out their assigned reading book and opens to the first page, hoping to ignore the interloper peering uncomfortably over his shoulder.

“You mean besides your face and your hair, and phew…” Sebastian waves a hand in front of his nose, leaning away dramatically, “whatever drugstore cologne you’re wearing?”

Kurt doesn’t bother wasting his time thinking up a comeback, too tired and too annoyed to match wits with Sebastian Smythe when he has 100 pages of Balzac to translate from the original French and write a paper outlining the author’s subtle nuances and how they compare to the popular writers of the time, due by the end of the week.

“If my cologne bothers you so much, why were you in such a rush to sit over here?” Kurt asks, not lifting his eyes from the yellowed pages of his novel. “I mean, we still have to read the book first. Can’t you do that at your desk on the other side of the room? Or Switzerland?”

“Oh, I’ve read the book already.” Sebastian leans over in his chair and puts his elbows on Kurt’s desk, resting his chin in his hands and staring at Kurt with an amused half-smirk.

“Then why don’t you start on your part of the essay?” Kurt asks, his voice tight as he re-reads the same sentence for the seventh time.

“What? And miss this scintillating conversation?” Sebastian teases.

Kurt sighs.

“Are you going to be this worthless for the whole project?”

Sebastian sits up straight and his cocky smirk slides quickly into a sneer.

“I’m not worthless,” he says, his tone flat and angry.

The change in his attitude is remarkable enough to make Kurt abandon his failed reading attempt for the time being.

“Are you _helping_?”

 “I just don’t see why we have to read this common-man bullshit,” Sebastian says, pulling himself out of his slip-up and prodding Kurt once more. “I mean, do I really care about a soldier, a factory worker, and some guy’s stupid mistress? I mean, send them to a bar and it would be a bad joke.”

Kurt rolls his eyes and returns to his book.

“Well, his characters were vulgar and morally ambiguous,” Kurt responds, jotting down a few sentences in his notebook. “I would think that would appeal to you.”

“You’re vulgar and ambiguous, and that doesn’t appeal to me at all.”

Kurt’s head snaps up from his book and he glares at Sebastian’s self-satisfied expression.

“Fuck you,” Kurt hisses quietly to make sure their teacher doesn’t overhear. “I was right to begin with. You _are_ worthless.”

Kurt starts shoving his books into his messenger bag, but Sebastian grabs his wrist to stop him.

“I told you,” Sebastian says, his eyes menacing, but his hand and voice shaking, “I’m not worthless.”

Kurt stares down with a blank expression at the trembling hand clamped around his wrist, then brings his eyes back up to Sebastian’s face and notices for the first time how clouded they are with hurt and determination. Kurt feels like he should say something, offer him some comfort, but the words ‘vulgar’ and ‘ambiguous’ suddenly leap to mind and the urge to offer Sebastian anything other than a right hook to the chin completely fades away.

“Whatever.” Kurt wrenches his hand out of Sebastian’s grasp. “I’ll write the paper myself.” Sliding his bag onto his shoulder, he turns and walks out of the classroom, leaving Sebastian with his hand still hovering where Kurt’s wrist had been.

***

Kurt can’t find his Balzac book anywhere. He checks the Warbler practice room. He checks the commons. He quadruple checks his bag. By the time he figures out that he probably left it in the French Lit classroom after his confrontation with Sebastian, the teacher is gone and the classroom locked. He can’t start his essay without it, and as he is now responsible for the whole damn thing he heads off to the library to get another copy.

At this hour of the afternoon most students are in their rooms or down at dinner, so when he hears mumbling coming from behind one of the stacks, curiosity compels him to peek. Last time he did he caught Nick and Jeff making out so he bites his lip, preparing to jump out and scare the pants off of Nick Duval.

He doesn’t expect to find Sebastian pacing back and forth, reading aloud to himself from a book of poetry of all things. Kurt watches quietly, surprise morphing slowly into concern. Sebastian seems extremely agitated for a boy who never loses his cool. He stamps the floor when he walks. He stutters over simple words like ‘in’ and ‘the’. One hand thrums against his thigh keeping the beat of his steps, then occasionally raises and runs through his hair, pulling it out of sorts.

Kurt feels like he’s invading Sebastian’s privacy watching him like this, but before he can slink away, Sebastian glances his way and jumps when he sees a pair of blue-grey eyes staring at him.

“Jesus, Hummel,” Sebastian barks in surprise, “would you stop fucking stalking me? You’re only embarrassing yourself.”

“Poetry?” Kurt says, relieved when Sebastian starts looking more like himself. “Really? I took you as more of the board book type. You know, something with a lot of pictures and very few words.”

Sebastian closes the book and tosses it on a table to his right and that hurt look returns, but this time he looks slightly defeated as well.

Kurt could chalk that up as a victory if it didn’t feel so hollow.

“There it is,” Sebastian says with a shrug. “My big secret is out. I like poetry, alright. Now that you know you have my permission to leave now.”

Kurt watches Sebastian wander off to the table where the book of poetry lies and drop into a waiting chair. Kurt doesn’t know why but he feels the need to follow, to make whatever this is going on with Sebastian right however he can.

Kurt pulls out a chair and sits down across from Sebastian, setting his messenger bag on the floor beside him. Kurt’s not sure how to fix things, but he has an idea of a good place to start.

“I’m sorry I called you worthless,” Kurt says. “I didn’t mean it.”

Sebastian doesn’t look at him, his eyes trained on the book in front of him, but he nods which Kurt has come to realize is the closest thing to a ‘thank you’ that he’s going to get.

“I’m…” Sebastian starts, trying to look Kurt in the eyes while he speaks, but his gaze drifts off instead to the stack of books behind him to make saying the next few words bearable, “I’m sorry I called you those names in class.”

“Thank you,” Kurt says.

“I’m not saying I didn’t mean them,” Sebastian fills in. Kurt shakes his head and laughs; knowing a sincere apology from Sebastian is a little too good to be true. “I just shouldn’t have said them out loud. You know, where you could hear.”

“Fair enough,” Kurt says, picking up his bag and preparing to leave.

“Maybe,” Sebastian starts after him, “you could explain to me what you see in these asshat characters, and then I can understand Balzac the way you do.”

“I could do that,” Kurt agrees, “if you could help me understand something.”

Sebastian tuts.

“And here I thought you were the patron saint of fucking French literature. What do you need me to help you understand?”

Kurt shakes his head again and re-takes his seat, fixing Sebastian with worried eyes.

“Why don’t you tell me about this other person who calls you worthless?”


	78. Coming In Out of the Rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Based off numerous kitty!Sebastian posts I’ve seen littered around.
> 
> While driving through a rainstorm, Kurt finds an unconscious man lying by the side of the road, but this man isn’t quite just a man.
> 
> (P. S. When I think kitty!Sebastian, I think of something with sharper claws then just a regular old house cat…)
> 
> Futurefic. AU. Kitty!Sebastian. Hybrid!Sebastian. Warning for injuries and bruises but nothing graphic.

Kurt thought he hated the rainy season in Ohio. That was until he got stuck on the L.I.E. during his first torrential New York rainstorm. Traffic crawled by as thick sheets of water pounded his Navigator so hard that even in the middle of the afternoon with his windshield wipers set to high he still couldn’t see the road a foot in front of his face.

Terrified of spinning off the slick asphalt, he stayed to the slow lane with his emergency lights blinking, hoping that some of the more suicidal commuters would speed past him instead of attempting to tailgate and force him to go faster. When they opted to ride his ass, he did his best to ignore them, his eyes sweeping the shoulder of the highway and the passing road signs, searching for his exit while simultaneously trying not to get into an accident.

An obnoxiously loud aftermarket horn blared to his left, and Kurt spun his head around as a Ford F-150 zoomed by him, the passenger with his window rolled down flipping Kurt off.

“Oh! Rude!” Kurt gasped, turning his attention back to his original task when a flash of gold and black nestled among the green grass caught his eye; a flash of gold and black that looked suspiciously like a human body. Kurt didn’t think; he just reacted, swerving onto the shoulder and killing his engine, leaping out without bothering to grab his jacket or umbrella.

He barreled down the embankment, shielding his eyes with his hand and blinking away the raindrops falling in his eyes to get a clearer look.

Kurt was right. It was a body, wearing worn black slacks, no shoes or socks, and what looked like a leopard skin coat.

He was nearly a foot away from the body when he realized his mistake.

The spotted wet fur didn’t belong to a coat, it belonged to the man – a man covered in cuts and bruises, blood washing away by the rain relentlessly pelting his body. Kurt stopped in his tracks and examined the man from a safe distance.

A hybrid. This man was a hybrid. Kurt had seen a couple of dog and cat hybrids prowling around the city with their companions, but no one quite like this. Big cat hybrids were rare…and considered dangerous. This one lay prone in the grass, and it took a few minutes of staring for Kurt to be sure that he was breathing. The movement of his chest was shallow, but it was there, and his tail lying behind him twitched from time to time, creepily like some distressed snake. Kurt crept up on him carefully, trying not to startle him too much, but the closer Kurt got to him the more Kurt realized this hybrid was unconscious. Kurt turned and looked all around them. From the man’s position on the ground and the tracks in the grass, it looked as though someone rolled him out of their car as they drove by (thank you late night CSI marathon!).

Kurt considered calling 9-1-1, but he had heard stories, horrible stories, of how large cat hybrids were treated at hospitals, how some of them never even made it there, diverted to mental health facilities because large cat hybrids were considered a danger to themselves and others most of the time. Kurt stared down into the man’s sleeping, troubled face, and he knew he couldn’t risk it.

He grabbed the man securely under his arms, praying to the great spaghetti monster in the sky that the hybrid wouldn’t wake up as he dragged his body back up the embankment to his car. It took some fumbling and awkward manipulating to get the limp body into the back seat, but Kurt managed it. He covered the man’s body in a blanket and a coat, and headed back into the city towards his apartment.

The drive was fairly smooth as the storm died down, but the hybrid started to wake up when Kurt exited the freeway. The hairs on Kurt’s neck stood on end as the sound of nervous breathing filled his car. His hands shook, and he gripped the steering wheel tighter to keep from pulling over, hopping out, and running for his life.

“Where am I?” a soft, icy voice whispered behind Kurt’s right ear.

“Y-you’re in my car h-headed to the city,” Kurt blurted out, feeling for a moment that he might be in danger. He took a deep breath and in his head he scolded himself for jumping to such a wild conclusion. Isn’t that why men like this were locked away to begin with, without any reason? Kurt steadied himself, trying to stay calm, knowing that leopards and other cats could sense fear. He was certain a leopard hybrid would be able to do the same.

“Who are you?” the man asked in the same menacing tone.

“My name is Kurt,” Kurt said calmly. “I found you unconscious on the side of the road.”

“Are you taking me to the hospital?” The voice sounded panicked. Kurt saw a pair of wide green feline eyes staring at him through the reflection of the rear view mirror.

“No,” Kurt said, his voice firm and reassuring. “I’m taking you to my apartment.”

The leopard huffed and curled back up beneath the blanket on the bench seat.

“You should have left me on the side of the road,” he said sadly.

“I’m trying to help you.”

“Right,” the voice groused. “I didn’t ask you to.”

“Too bad,” Kurt said quickly, and then froze, not really interested in insulting a man with razor sharp teeth and claws, but seconds later Kurt heard muted laughter.

“I’m Sebastian, by the way,” the voice said.

Before Kurt could respond, the voice was replaced by the muffled sound of snoring.

Kurt drove on autopilot, his mind whirring with the pros and cons of what he was doing. He knew next to nothing about regular hybrids, not to mention a leopard hybrid. He vaguely remembered something about them being restricted to reservations throughout the country, about the ones who lived and worked elsewhere needing special papers and permission, that their rights as citizens were mostly decimated by ignorant public outcry and small minded fear. Kurt peeked back through his mirror at the man sleeping fitfully, all of his bruises, the way he was discarded like trash, and his heart physically hurt.

Kurt Hummel was not one to let anyone suffer if he could do something to help.

He pulled up to his apartment half an hour later, parking in the underground lot, thankful for its dim lighting even during the day. He’d need to figure out a way of getting Sebastian upstairs without anyone noticing what he was. Sebastian’s body appeared to be covered in fur from head to toe. Kurt had the coat, a scarf, and a hat somewhere in the car to keep his identity hidden, but Sebastian had to have injuries somewhere. Kurt couldn’t imagine being pushed out of a vehicle, moving or not, without sustaining some injuries. What if something was broken? How would Kurt handle it?

He figured he’d cross that bridge when he got to it.

Kurt leaned over the front seat and shook Sebastian’s sleeping body gently.

“Sebastian?” Kurt whispered. “Sebastian, we’re here. I need you to get up.”

A low, raspy growl, more tired than frightening, sounded from beneath the blanket.

“Do I have to?” a deep voice murmured. Kurt was tempted to laugh, but he bit his tongue and held back, still not convinced that Sebastian trusted him and not wanting to lose the little bit of faith he did have.

“I’m afraid so,” Kurt said, carefully pulling away the blanket until he could at least see Sebastian’s face. His eyes were shut tight; a shroud of pain distorting his features. Up close like this he looked like a man – a young, handsome, complicated man; but the second his eyes opened, and Kurt could see the narrowed pupils of his feline eyes, his whole appearance changed. He was still handsome, in some ways even more so, but there was something wild and terrible about him, too.

It didn’t really frighten Kurt too much.

It made his heart race staring into his mysterious, feral eyes.

“Are you hurt?” Kurt asked.

“I think…” Sebastian moved his limbs slowly, pulling himself from his coiled position and trying out his joints and muscles. He rolled his ankles and winced. “My right ankle. It’s sprained, but I think that’s all.”

“Okay.” Kurt sat back in his seat and thought. “Get that coat on, and we’ll go from there.”

Kurt got out of his Navigator and went to the rear of the vehicle, opening the hatch and rummaging through his things. He tossed Sebastian the scarf and a Fedora, digging around until he found what he was looking for – a pair of dirty, ancient work boots his father had left with him the last time Kurt visited Ohio. Kurt’s Navigator got stuck in the mud and he refused to change the tire himself for fear of getting his Jimmy Choo Stanford leather boots dirty. What his dad didn’t seem to realize was that Kurt had no intention of changing the tire himself – boots or no boots – but he had taken them anyway to avoid starting an argument.

He gingerly slipped the boots onto the hybrid’s feet, feeling the heat of Sebastian’s stare as he worked but trying not to let it affect him.

“Now, lean your weight on me and I’ll help you to my apartment,” Kurt instructed, offering his arms to Sebastian, who sat rigidly alert and incredibly on his guard. “I promise I won’t hurt you.”

Sebastian rolled his eyes, stiff muscles unhinging but only infinitesimally. He grabbed onto Kurt’s arms, taking care to keep the sharp tips of his claws away from the soft underside of Kurt’s arms. He slipped out of the car and landed on his left ankle, putting most of his weight on it to keep his balance. Kurt grabbed Sebastian’s arm and slipped it over his shoulder, pulling Sebastian close and leaning his muscular body against him. Kurt kicked the car door closed with his foot and triggered the alarm with the fob on his keys. Holding Sebastian tight, he led the large cat along through the parking garage.

“What will we say if we see someone and they ask questions?” Sebastian asked nervously.

“I’ll just tell them you’re my boyfriend and you’re drunk,” Kurt joked. Sebastian chuckled quietly, an amused sound in the back of his throat that made Kurt smile.

Thankfully they encountered no one on their way up to Kurt’s apartment. The more they walked, the more sluggish Sebastian became so the second they stepped through the door Kurt hurried Sebastian onto the sofa and elevated his leg. He ran to the bathroom and fished his first aid kit out from underneath the sink, hurrying back to his patient. Sebastian kneaded at one of the throw pillows as a sign of his discomfort, unwittingly shredding it as he waited for Kurt to return.

Kurt worked quickly and silently on the many bruises that marred the leopard skin, ignoring the hisses and growls that accompanied every application of antibiotic ointment to Sebastian’s torn flesh. Outside the storm started to rage, lightning striking the rod on the roof of a nearby building; thunder loudly rending the air. Sebastian startled with every bolt, every crash, and by the time Kurt moved on to wrapping Sebastian’s foot, two more throw pillows were ripped to shreds.

“Are you going to tell me what happened?” Kurt dared ask, checking the bandage one last time to make sure it was secure. “Tell me why I found you lying in a ditch?”

“No,” Sebastian snarled, pulling his injured limb away without so much as a thank you. Kurt rolled his eyes at the little power play.

“Fine.” Kurt stood and packed away the contents of the first aid kit back into its metal box. “Well, you can stay the night if you want,” Kurt offered. “The couch is pretty comfortable, but if you would prefer the floor…”

“I’m not a pet,” Sebastian growled, tail twitching anxiously.

“I didn’t say you were,” Kurt countered, crossing his arms loosely across his chest. “But if you think you’ll have better luck with a sprained foot out in the rain, then by all means, there’s the door...” Kurt stepped to the side and gestured toward the entryway. “Be my guest.”

Sebastian’s green eyes narrowed to slits and burned into Kurt’s cooler, nonplussed blue ones. Sebastian stood from the chair, balancing mostly on his uninjured foot. He took a tentative step forward on his sore foot, wincing at the sharp jab of pain when he put his weight on it. He limped forward one step, then two, gaining momentum as he padded toward the door, a deadly glare trained on Kurt’s face as he went. Inch by inch, Sebastian made his way across the living room, reaching for the door knob as if it were his ultimate goal. By the time he touched the hard, burnished metal of the knob, another bolt of electricity lit the sky, flooding the room with a chaotic blast of light. Thunder rumbled, shaking the windows, reverberating around them loud enough to knock over one of Kurt’s candlesticks on his mantel.

Sebastian roared, stumbling backward away from the door mindless of his injury, trying to find a place in the living room to hide from the storm. Kurt dodged the flailing hybrid, all claws and bared teeth as he tripped over the throw rug and landed on his back on the sofa. Kurt rushed around the room, pulling the drapes closed in an effort to block out the lightening and dampen the noise of the thunder. He turned back to Sebastian. His spotted fur bristled all over his body; he held his breath, paralyzed by fear but still lethal as he lay, poised to strike anything that came near.

Kurt stood by the windows and waited until Sebastian’s body relaxed. He struggled to sit up, tucking his tail behind him, fur smoothing down to normal, claws disappearing.

Kurt watched Sebastian warily, knowing that it would kill his pride to force him to concede defeat. Instead Kurt simply shrugged.

“Have it your way,” he said, an honest yawn escaping his lips. “Stay or don’t stay. It’s up to you. You’re not doing me any favors.” Kurt felt Sebastian’s embarrassment and his confusion in the way his eyes shifted from cat to remotely human as they watched Kurt. Kurt turned his back on the man and headed toward the door that led to his room. “If you decide to leave, just do me a solid and lock the door, please? I don’t need any more strays crawling in here.”

Kurt walked into his room, his heart racing in his chest at the thought of a leopard hybrid sleeping on his sofa. A gorgeous leopard hybrid, Kurt had to admit. His eyes alone – those beautiful green eyes simmering with a constant heat and sparkling like gems in the light – were positively hypnotizing, which was part of what made him so dangerous. Those eyes could lure anyone to do his bidding, Kurt was sure of it.

Sebastian was right, he wasn’t a pet.

Kurt wondered how much of him was still a man.

All through the night, the lightning flashed and the thunder boomed. Kurt barely noticed it through the thick velvet curtains of his room, but he knew that Sebastian’s ears were far more sensitive, and he hoped that he was able to find peace long enough to drift off to sleep. At one point Kurt thought that he heard the click of a door open and close, and his heart sank. He had really wanted to get to know Sebastian a bit better.

Selfishly, he had also hoped that Sebastian might consider staying for a while. Even as difficult as he was, having Sebastian here felt right somehow, as if Kurt had been looking for him and not a highway exit all along.

The rain stopped sometime before dawn. The sun rose right on time, but Kurt slept late. With the drapes shut tight, the rays of sunlight didn’t rouse him, but something else did. His bed dipped slightly to one side, and an unusual weight draped over the lower half of his body. Kurt cracked a heavy eyelid and peered down the bed. Curled over his stomach and spilling onto his blood red comforter lay a handsome leopard’s skin, rising and falling with deep contented breaths. Kurt smiled.

It looked like he’d get his chance to get to know Sebastian better after all.


	79. Misdirected Messages

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another one-shot from the anon prompt ‘depraved’ using the theme ‘called/texted the wrong number’.
> 
> Sebastian intercepts a late night text from Kurt and decides to have some fun with him instead of telling him he’s got the wrong number. (Warning for language, mention of sexual acts, infidelity, mention of Blaine.)

_Bzzz-bzzz._

The buzzing near Sebastian’s ear chips away at his sleep, slowly waking him from a stupor brought on by too much European History too late at night.

_Bzzz-bzzz._

He shoves his text book off his chest where it lays open and looks at his phone, traveling along his smooth desk surface as it vibrates with the arrival of a new text message.

_Bzzz-bzzz._

Sebastian takes a glance at his desk clock.

2:30 a.m.

“Jesus Christ,” he murmurs, definitely unamused. “Somebody better be fucking dead.”

He picks up his phone and reads the number on the screen, frowning in confusion. He doesn’t recognize it right away. It’s listed as unknown since he never saved it under his contacts. The last time he saw that number flash across his screen, Kurt Hummel was scolding Sebastian about how he was ‘on to him’ and how he didn’t like the way Sebastian talked to his boyfriend.

Sebastian smirks when he opens the message.

_Hey, sweetie. Are you awake?_

Sebastian stares at the message, at a loss as to why Kurt would call him ‘sweetie’ and why he would care if he was awake. Then Sebastian smiles. Kurt must have misdialed. He thinks he’s talking to Blaine.

He could, for once, just do the nice guy thing and tell Kurt that he’s talking to the wrong person. Sebastian is exhausted, and in roughly five hours he’s going to be preparing to take one of the hardest mid-terms he has all year.

But Sebastian rarely did ‘the good guy thing’, and this is too precious an opportunity to pass up.

‘I’m awake. What’s up?’

Sebastian isn’t sure how Kurt and Blaine’s conversations usually go, so he hopes this first text is vague and noncommittal enough to be convincing.

_What are you wearing?_

Sebastian opens his eyes wide, his grin growing to astronomical proportions at the thought of where this conversation is most likely headed. He figures he’ll bite and give it a good jumping off point.

‘Nothing.’

_Really?_

Sebastian can’t believe he’s actually giggling when he sends the next text.

‘Yup. I’m not wearing a thing.’

_It’s almost like you expected me to text you._

‘Well, I was hoping you would.’

Sebastian snickers and almost drops his phone.

_Are you up for a little phone sex?_

Sebastian pauses for a moment. Kurt wants Blaine to call him. He has to think of some reason not to that Kurt will believe. Sebastian thinks over the day, over every time he saw Princess Hummel and Dapper Dan together. Not too much interesting happened if you don’t count that heinous note Blaine hit during Katy Perry’s _Hot N Cold_ today. Sebastian starts typing again.

‘Throat’s a little sore from Warbler practice. How about some sexting?’

Sebastian hits send and waits. Kurt must be chomping at the bit because he doesn’t have to wait that long.

_I could do that. So, do you want me?_

Sebastian rolls his eyes. Desperate much?

‘It’s all I think about.’

_If you were in my room right now, would you want to fuck me?_

“Ooo, Kurt. Such language,” Sebastian says, eyes wide as he re-reads the message, trying to imagine it in Kurt’s high-pitched, breathy voice.

‘Yes, I want to fuck you. Is that even a question?’

_Would you kiss me first?_

‘Of course I would, babe.’

_Hmmm, babe. I like that. But why so shy? Be specific._

Sebastian closes his eyes and pictures Kurt, pictures his body. If Kurt was there and Sebastian was about to have sex with him, where would he kiss him? Well, his lips are out, seeing as Kurt would need a paper bag to cover up his gay face just so that Sebastian could stomach it. He chuckles at his own private joke, but then sobers up and tries to focus. Actually, he hates to admit it, but Kurt isn’t really half bad considering. He’s actually kind of handsome. He’s not Sebastian’s usual type, but he wouldn’t kick that tiny waist and that tight ass out of bed if he had the chance. Kurt’s skin is so smooth, so flawless, begging to be marked up properly, and his eyes – there is something about his eyes that Sebastian can definitely see himself getting lost in.

The illusion is killed stone dead though every time Kurt opens his mouth and speaks.

Not because of his unique, somewhat effeminate countertenor voice, but because of his sassy ass tongue.

Though lately, Sebastian kind of likes Kurt’s sassy ass tongue.

“Be specific, huh?”

Sebastian rolls onto his stomach on the bed, staring at his cell phone screen.

‘I’d kiss your neck behind your left ear…your chest over your heart…every inch of your left arm…’

Sebastian sends that much to see what kind of reaction he will get.

_That’s a nice start. Keep going._

Sebastian blows out a breath, shifting on his bed to accommodate an annoyingly untimely erection. He tells himself it’s nothing, that there is absolutely no way he’s getting a hard-on sexting Hummel of all people. It’s the technical aspects that are getting him hot. It’s been a while since he’s kissed anyone, touched anyone. After this he’ll find some naïve boy questioning his sexuality and take out all this pent up frustration on him.

He clears his mind and tries to think of all the intimate, sappy places that Blaine probably kisses Kurt.

‘…your left wrist followed by your right…your hips, traveling in a slow line to your knees and then all the way down to your ankles…’

Sebastian hits send, his free hand snaking into his pajama pants, holding his now aching cock, waiting for Kurt to respond.

_Then what would you do?_

Sebastian types a few words, but then quickly erases them and types something else.

‘What would you do? I’m doing all the work here.’

Sebastian hits send and waits, anticipation causing his cock to throb in his hand. He bides his time thinking about calculus, the dates of the next ten lacrosse meets, his own part swaying in the background of the Katy Perry show stopper extravaganza that Blaine saddled them with – anything to kill his boner.

_I’m dying to give you a blowjob._

Sebastian chokes on air.

There’s no way his erection is dying now. It springs to life in his hand, and the next text Kurt sends makes it even worse.

_I want to wrap my lips around your thick cock. I want to suck you slowly, with your fingers grabbing at my hair. I want you pounding in my mouth and begging to cum down my throat._

“Holy…and…shit,” Sebastian mutters, stroking himself subconsciously as he reads the message over and over again, seething that now he actually has a reason to be jealous of Blaine Anderson.

‘But I wouldn’t cum, because I’d want your ass too much.’

Sebastian turns to his side to give his hand more room to move around his cock.

_And how would you want me? On my stomach or on my back?_

An hour ago Sebastian would have said on his stomach, because – gay face. But he thinks it over, imagines every detail in his mind – the hickeys he would suck into Kurt’s pale neck, the flush of red that would rise into his cheeks, those blue eyes staring up at him, blown wide with lust and excitement, maybe even affection…or something close.

‘I would pin you down, hold your wrists over your head so I can look deep into your eyes while I pound into you.’

It’s a bit more romantic than Sebastian normally lets himself think, but he doesn’t care. It seems right for Kurt. Sebastian’s hand moves faster, and he feels heat rising all around him, his legs trembling slightly as he curses Kurt to type quicker. Only then does the thought hit him – maybe Kurt’s touching himself, too.

Sebastian moans out loud at the thought of Captain Prim and Proper with his hand thrust down his pants, jerking off to Sebastian’s text messages. Sebastian’s phone buzzes again, but he almost doesn’t catch it over the sound of his own whimpering.

_I’d wrap my legs around your waist and pull you close because I need to kiss you._

Sebastian can almost feel it; those lithe legs struggling to stay wrapped around his middle, Kurt crunching up to reach him, to kiss him, probably missing his mouth, but connecting at his neck, his chest, a single flick of his pink tongue over Sebastian’s nipple.

Sebastian groans, hips working his cock into his fist over and over, and he almost regrets having started this.

_I’m cumming._

Sebastian reads the text, and that heat that’s been rising around him turns into an all-out fire, filling him from his stomach to his fingertips, down to his feet and to the tips of hair with its delicious burn. Sebastian fumbles for the phone as his entire body rebels, wanting to close in on itself and wait out the explosion.

‘That’s it, babe. Cum for me. Cum for me now…’

He mutters the words as he types them, the sound of his own wrecked voice mixed with the image of Kurt somewhere in the dorms with his hips stuttering, his head buried into his pillow as he bites back a moan, his hand covered in his own cum, tipping Sebastian over the edge. He tries for one last text, but he gives up, shoving his free hand into his mouth and biting down hard on the knuckle, stroking himself through his release, eyes squeezed tight with the last image he had of Kurt, now relaxing back onto his mattress with a goofy smile on his face, fading from his memory.

As soon as the haze of his euphoria begins to clear, a strange swirl of thoughts and emotions enters his brain, the first one being, “I just had sex with Kurt Hummel!”

He says it out loud to hear how it sounds, and he laughs, thinking about the look on Blaine’s face if he ever found out, but even that doesn’t seem to give him as much joy as the thought that he just gave (indirectly) Kurt pleasure. He made the Ice Queen cum.

He couldn’t let that affect him though. This was a prank, revenge, pure and simple, regardless of how much his racing heart longed to do it again.

_Fuck, I came so hard._

Sebastian reads the message and smirks, trying to find a way back to the bastard in him that started this as a way to get back at Kurt, not a way to dream about what his skin would feel like hot beneath his fingers, or what his cum might taste like on his tongue as he licked it off Kurt’s hand.

‘I’m sorry, were you looking for Blaine? Because he’s not here. I’m afraid you’ve been sexting the wrong guy.’

He hits send, but he doesn’t feel the incredible sense of triumph he thought he would. In fact, the text he sent sounds kind of lame when he reads it back to himself. Still, he tries to imagine Kurt’s face when he reads the message, the inevitable flip out that would ensue, and the text equivalent of a screechy tirade that he’s sure to receive any minute. After about ten minutes of not receiving a return message he pictures Kurt in his room having a full on level five meltdown. What if he’s hyperventilating? A part of him wants to burst out laughing, but another part of him wants to race to Kurt’s room to make sure he’s okay.

What the fuck is wrong with him?

Sebastian hears shuffling footsteps in the hallway outside his room and a soft knock at his door. He glances at the clock which now reads 3:45 a.m. He wonders if someone in another room heard him moaning and has come to investigate. He laughs when he stands off his bed, thinking of the cum drying on his skin in his pants, and walks quietly to the door, opening it a crack to see who’s outside.

His smile is sucked off his face entirely when he sees Kurt, leaning against his outside door frame with an odd twist of a smile on his face, holding his phone up in Sebastian’s line of sight.

“Why did you think I was texting Blaine?”

 


	80. In Your Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by a prompt list I saw floating around - having a wet dream and saying another person’s name.
> 
> Dalton AU where Sebastian is supposed to have a single room, but some slip-up causes Kurt to be his roommate.
> 
> This may have been done to death, but oh well! Here’s another one :)
> 
> (Warnings for masturbation, voyeurism, unintentional exhibitionism, recording without consent, eluding to Blaine but no Klaine.)

Sebastian wakes unhappily to the lilting sounds of a softly murmured Broadway showstopper being sung from the occupant of the bed on the other side of the room, and he groans in aggravation. He grabs his iPhone out from beneath his pillow and squints at the brightly lit screen, checking the time.

Barely past one in the morning.

“Fuuucccckkkk!!!” he grumbles, burying his head in his pillow and pulling the ends up over his ears.

How he got saddled with a roommate he’ll never know. Sebastian always had a single room…ALWAYS. He didn’t do roommates. Well, he would if this one wasn’t such a fucking prude. Regardless, his parents paid extra for him to have a single room and damn it he should have a single room by now, but so far no amount of threatening phone calls from his father has been able to speed the process along. For being such a prestigious school the administration at Dalton couldn’t seem to do their jobs worth shit.

For two weeks now he’s had to put up with Kurt Hummel, or as Sebastian not-so affectionately refers to him, the Ice Queen. He wakes up two hours before breakfast to shower and moisturize. He steams out the wrinkles in his uniform jacket every day with this obnoxious hand held steamer thing that makes some obnoxious hissing noise, and he does it right before Sebastian’s alarm is set to go off in the morning. He never answers a single one of Sebastian’s questions directly, and when he studies, he does these inane vocal exercises, as if Sondheim himself is going to walk through their dorm room door any minute and beg Kurt to be in his newest musical starting in exactly ten minutes.

And to top it off, he sings in his sleep.

Sebastian hears Kurt whimper; a high, breathy note that breaks as Kurt struggles to sustain it, and Sebastian rolls his eyes.

“Better luck next time, princess.” Sebastian rolls on his side facing the wall, but Kurt fails to hit the note again, this time louder and whinier.

“Ugh!” Sebastian sits up and picks up his pillow, preparing to loft it across the room, debating walking it over instead and smothering Kurt in his sleep when he makes the breathy sound again, and this time Sebastian hears it for what it is – and freezes.

A moan. Kurt is moaning in his sleep. Sebastian racks his sleep muddled brain for any musical he knows of that has moaning in it, and as he becomes more aware and his mind starts to clear, he begins to comprehend what Kurt must really be dreaming about.

Even if he didn’t, the next words out of Kurt’s mouth confirm it.

“Oh…yes…don’t stop…”

Sebastian lowers his weapon and a slow, conniving grin spreads across his face. He fumbles for his phone, intent on capturing this phenomenon on camera. Maybe then he can get the Ice Queen to thaw out a little – or at least wait until after he wakes up in the morning to steam his Goddamned uniform.

Sebastian opens the camera app on his phone and aims the viewfinder at Kurt’s bed. Through the illumination on the screen he sees the image of Kurt lying on his back, a goofy smile on his face, and _ohmyGod_! He’s kicked the covers off his body and Sebastian can plainly see Kurt’s hand down his pants, moving steadily back and forth. There’s no doubt in Sebastian’s mind that Kurt is daydreaming about that ‘sex-on-a-stick-and-sings-like-a-dream’ friend of his; the one with the wide, puppy dog eyes and the bashful school boy grin. Sebastian had made it his mission from the first moment he laid eyes on him to try and tap that, but cockblock Hummel always manages to get in the way.

Just another reason on a growing list as to why this video is going to come in handy.

_Come on, Hummel. You want him. You know you do. Just say his name._

Sebastian holds the phone steady, but when Kurt arches his bed and moans again, he feels his whole body tremble. He can’t help it. Truth be told, it’s been a while since Sebastian’s had a good fuck; much longer than he’d like to admit. Even though Kurt is annoying, he’s not necessarily abhorrent, and here he is in Sebastian’s room, rutting into his hand and moaning…

When did it get so hot in that room?

Sebastian figures he’s got enough footage to make Kurt bend to his whims for at least a month so he decides to turn off the camera when Kurt moans again.

“Sebastian…”

Sebastian’s finger hovers above the camera icon, but he doesn’t tap it, holding still, holding his breath to see if he isn’t dreaming, and Kurt didn’t just…

“Mmm…Sebastian…”

Sebastian peers at the screen but he can’t make out anything but a tremendous dark blur and he realizes his hands are shaking. Sebastian turns off the camera and stuffs it back beneath his pillow, swallowing thickly as Kurt moans again.

“Right there…yes…”

Right there? Right where? Sebastian’s whole body burns with curiosity to find out. He stands up and pads across the floor to Kurt’s bed; the cold tile beneath his feet doing nothing to kill the erection growing with every panting breath, every mumbled moan that crosses Kurt’s lips. Sebastian stops at Kurt’s bedside, hovering above the body writhing on the narrow mattress, hand thrust inside his pants, rapidly palming over his cock, pink lip pinched between his teeth.

Sebastian is mesmerized by the stuttered way Kurt’s hips rise up to meet the movements of his hand, and Sebastian’s own cock aches from neglect. He snakes his hand into his pants, wrapping it around his cock, working over it hard and fast knowing that Kurt can’t possibly last much longer. Sebastian licks his lips, watching Kurt bite his lip harder; the next long, sustained moan muffled and choked.

“Seb…Sebas…”

Kurt can’t seem to say his name as his entire body convulses, but that fractured, desperate sound combined with way too much time between hook-ups is enough to shove Sebastian headlong into his own mind-shattering orgasm.

Sebastian strokes himself through it, jerky motions causing him to stumble backward into Kurt’s desk, knocking over a cup full of pens and pencils, scattering them over the edge and onto the floor. Kurt’s eyes snap open, confusion erasing the look of extreme relaxation and pleasure on his face. He shakes his head from side to side and catches a glimpse of Sebastian standing a foot or so away from his bed, slightly doubled over with his hand down his pants. He looks stunned, like a deer about to be pummeled by an oncoming truck, but only for a second before his usual brand of cocky smirk returns, and his green eyes shimmer devilishly in the scant light.

“Was it good for you, too?” Sebastian drawls, pulling his hand from his pants. He takes off his t-shirt, staring shamelessly at Kurt, and wipes his hand.

“Are you sniffing glue, or is that CW cologne you bathe in finally killing the four active cells left in your brain?” Kurt snaps, not seeming to register that his own hand is still firmly attached to his flaccid cock.

“Hey, you’re the one over here spending quality time with your right hand,” Sebastian teases. “I just decided to get close enough to enjoy the show.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Kurt says, pulling the covers back over his body and wrapping them tight around him, “but ‘sexual harassment’ comes to mind.”

“That wasn’t the only thing coming to mind a minute ago.” Sebastian steps away, making his way back to his bed, keeping his eyes locked on Kurt’s body as he turns over in a huff to face the wall. “And just so you know, we do have an en suite bathroom in case you get the urge again, since you’re being so shy and everything.”

“Fuck you, Smythe,” Kurt mutters, yanking his sheet up over his head to hide completely.

“In your dreams, Hummel,” Sebastian quips back. “Oh, wait. I think you already did.”

 


	81. Midnight Rendezvous

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vampire AU. Angst. Warning for biting, mention of blood-sucking, romance. I don’t want to say too much…

“Kurt…”

Kurt can hear the eerie hiss of Sebastian’s voice through the closed window of his room. Kurt lies completely still, hoping that Sebastian will think he’s asleep and go away.

“Ku-urt…”

It doesn’t work.

It never does.

Kurt sighs and turns towards the window. Sebastian’s eyes peer in at him in the dark, the rest of his face shrouded by the shadows of the branches from the tree he crouches in outside.

“Go away, Seb,” Kurt groans.

“I can’t,” Sebastian whines, pressing his hands and face against the glass of the locked window. “I want it, Kurt. I need it.”

“Sebastian,” Kurt says firmly, his tired eyelids fighting to stay open long enough to get rid of his obnoxious visitor, “there are hundreds of men in the state of Ohio who can give it to you.”

“But I want you,” Sebastian insists. “You’re the best.”

“Be that as it may, you’re not getting any.” Kurt turns his back to Sebastian in an attempt to hide his triumphant grin.

_The best._

What a tacky thing to be proud of, but he’ll take what he can get.

“Oh, don’t be such a prude,” Sebastian grumbles sarcastically. “You know you love it, too.”

Kurt spins around in his bed, sitting upright to better face the boy hovering by his window.

“What a morbid thing to say,” Kurt says. “I certainly do not.”

“Don’t give me that shit,” Sebastian groans. “I know you, Hummel. In some ways, I know you better than you know yourself. I’ve tasted you…”

Sebastian smirks at Kurt, and Kurt burns red, his whole face hot to the touch. Kurt retreats to the safety of his comforter, wrapping it around his shoulders, trapped in Sebastian’s hypnotic stare.

“I know it turns you on. I hear the way you whimper,” Sebastian continues, tracing down the pane of glass with a single, thin finger. “I see the way you bite your lip, trying so desperately not to moan…”

Kurt’s eyes track Sebastian’s fingertip as it outlines the edge of the glass, stopping on the ledge where the lock to Kurt’s window is fastened shut, tapping right above it as if he is simply waiting out the inevitable.

Sebastian isn’t wrong. Ever since the first time Sebastian convinced Kurt to do it, Kurt realized he’s kind of a masochist as far as Sebastian is concerned. Even now as he tries so hard to resist he can feel his heart pounding faster and faster in his chest, longing to give in, to give Sebastian what he wants. Regardless of his heart’s begging to let Sebastian have him, or his body that’s begun to react without his consent, Kurt isn’t just about to lay himself bare for Sebastian

He doesn’t want to make it too easy.

“My answer is no, Seb,” Kurt says again, snuggling down onto his bed and closing his eyes.

“Fine,” Sebastian growls, feral and threatening, all pretense of slow, sophisticated seduction gone, “Kurt Elizabeth Hummel, if you don’t open this window right now and let me in, I’m going to start singing Spice Girls songs at the top of my lungs all night long.”

That definitely gets Kurt’s attention, exhausted or not. Kurt pops up in bed and meets Sebastian’s burning glare with an icy stare of his own.

“You…wouldn’t…dare,” Kurt challenges, but the second Sebastian opens his mouth to start singing, Kurt runs to his window in a flash, undoing the lock and pushing it open before a single word of _Wannabe_ leaves his lips.

“Won’t you come on in?” Kurt gestures dramatically, not even trying to hide his irritation. Sebastian climbs through, grinning from ear to ear. Sebastian closes and locks the window behind him, following Kurt as he trudges back to bed, trundling beneath the comforter with a single arm sticking out.

“Get on with it,” Kurt says. “I have a calc test in the morning and I want to at least get an hour of sleep.”

Sebastian looks down at Kurt, wrapped in his blankets like a human burrito, and frowns.

“As sexy as this is,” Sebastian mutters, moving to the other side of the bed and climbing beside the bundled body of Kurt Hummel, “I would really like to hold you.”

Kurt peeks up from a space in the comforter and sighs, pulling apart his carefully wrapped cocoon to let Sebastian crawl inside. Sebastian winds his arms around Kurt, trying his best not to hold him too tight. He doesn’t want to accidentally hurt him. He takes Kurt’s arm and raises his wrist to his mouth, kissing the soft skin, pressing his lips against it to feel the pulse thrumming there, calling to him.

“Do you miss it?” Kurt hums, enjoying the cool press of Sebastian’s lips against his skin.

“What?” Sebastian asks taking a deep breath of Kurt’s scent – vanilla and honey, sweet and floral, delicate and human.

“Being alive?” Kurt mutters, looking up into Sebastian’s pale face and his hard, red eyes; eyes that were once such a beautiful shade of green.

Sebastian smirks, running his lips along the inside of Kurt’s forearm, tracing the paths of his veins with a gentle lick of his tongue.

“Not as long as I have you to remind me,” Sebastian whispers. Kurt closes his eyes as Sebastian places open mouth kisses along his skin.

Kurt has long since stopped being fascinated by this part.

The bite is quick; a smooth slip of Sebastian’s razor sharp fangs into Kurt’s skin, and suddenly his mouth is filled with Kurt’s unique taste, his mind reeling with images of warm summer walks they shared together, skinny dipping in the lake, late afternoon lunches of Kurt’s famous cucumber sandwiches, and making love at sunset, brazenly beneath the tall willows that grew just shy of the water. In this way Sebastian can remember exactly how Kurt’s skin felt with mortal fingers, the warmth of his body pressed against his, the way they fit perfectly together, like two pieces in a puzzle that was once the picture of a glorious future together.

One stupid fight and a vengeful, drunken tryst ended it all when the vampire who seduced him turned Sebastian into the cold, dead thing sucking the blood from his one true love’s arm.

Sebastian breaks away, tracks of bloody tears staining his cheeks, and with a swipe of his tongue he closes the wound. He looks down at Kurt, eyes shut, his face peaceful in sleep beneath the silver light from the moon outside. It’s been a little over a year, and yet it feels like only yesterday, but Sebastian knows that a time will come when days and nights and months and years will have no meaning for him at all. One moonlit evening he’ll be here and Kurt will be vibrant and alive, and in the blink of an eye seventy years will pass and Kurt will be gone.

Sebastian only hopes that when that day comes he’ll be able to find the courage to walk out into the sunlight.

He pulls in closer to Kurt’s sleeping body and rests his head where he can hear the rhythmic beating of his heart, and as he has so many other nights, he lies awake with Kurt in his arms, dreading the oncoming dawn.

 


	82. The Dawn of Change

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so first I wrote 'Time Enough to Forgive', which was a sad futurefic vampire!AU where Kurt is dying and Sebastian wants to turn him into a vampire. Recently I wrote 'Midnight Rendezvous' which I saw as a prequel to that fic, where we see how and why Sebastian became a vampire to begin with. I felt there seriously needed to be a middle, so here it is. I hope you enjoy. Warning for biting, erotic reaction to blood sucking, sexual acts, and the impending death of a major character (no gore).

Things have changed. Things always change. They must change if life is to continue.

Sebastian changed when he decided to cheat on Kurt, even though he could never have predicted that he would become a vampire.

Kurt changed, too.

When Sebastian first came to Kurt’s window in search of his forgiveness…and in search of his blood, Kurt refused to give it, but over time he realized how much he missed the love of his life, how even though they had been ripped completely apart he would do anything to share a moment or two together.

If that meant spilling a little blood, then he would do it.

He never realized how much he would enjoy it – the closeness, the intimacy, fulfilling Sebastian’s needs.

Kurt became Sebastian’s favorite midnight snack, and not simply because Sebastian was now a creature who sought out blood, but because Kurt’s blood called to him. There was a time when Sebastian tried to resist that call. He traveled across the world, settling for a while in France in order to escape it, but even across continents he could hear Kurt’s blood crying out for him. It called to him with memories of their life together, the future they had planned, the love that Kurt still kept in his heart that belonged only to Sebastian.

That love ached inside Kurt every moment he couldn’t be with Sebastian. It took the place of oxygen and water and food and left him wanting every second of every minute of every day. All the decisions he made, all the change he had planned on seemed meaningless without Sebastian to share them with.

Which is why five years to the date that Sebastian was changed, they found themselves together in Kurt’s new apartment in New York, naked in Kurt’s bed, Kurt writhing beneath his boyfriend’s cold, hard body as Sebastian planted small nips down his chest, traveling down his inner thigh, taking only small sips of blood to fuel his hunger for Kurt’s body, feeding off the moans and whimpers those tiny bites elicited from Kurt’s trembling lips; the breathy whispers of, “Yes…oh yes, Sebastian…more…”

Kurt and Sebastian didn’t wait for change. They made it happen. They found a way to be together.

Sebastian spends the daylight hours asleep in Kurt’s bed, with the smell of his beloved to lull him to sleep and make him feel safe and loved and human again. No more hiding out in crypts or burying himself beneath the earth. They blacked out the windows in Kurt’s bedroom and put heavy velvet curtains over them to keep out any trace of sunlight. Sebastian hunts at night, discreetly prowling the empty city streets, but every night he comes home to his boyfriend.

They accept it as a part of their life together, so they never discuss it.

As long as Kurt gets to spend every night with Sebastian, kissing him, touching him, giving and taking from him, Kurt doesn’t begrudge Sebastian a single thing he has to do to exist in this world.

Kurt gets the chance to live his dream – classes at NYADA, interning at _Vogue_ , while still coming home to the man he loves.

For a while everything is perfect, but change is inevitable…and not always kind.

Sometimes it interferes with even the most carefully laid plans.

A few annoying bouts of nausea.

The occasional dizzy spell.

Kurt jokes with Isabelle that if he didn’t know better he would say he was pregnant, but her constant worrying sends him to the doctor one Thursday afternoon.

Kurt feels a little guilty handing over his blood to another man, but it’s necessary to put Isabelle’s mind at ease.

When he finds out about the new possible change in his life, he pushes it aside, hides his grief until he can be completely sure.

Kurt comes home from work late, and a worried Sebastian is pacing the living room floor, debating between leaving to try and find his boyfriend, or waiting patiently even though Kurt isn’t answering his phone.

The sight of Kurt walking through the door is a rapture like no other Sebastian has ever known, and without a word he takes Kurt into his arms and drags him off to bed. Little does Sebastian know that it’s just the distraction that Kurt needs. Sebastian’s body presses into his, keeping him grounded. Sebastian uses all of his self-control to keep from tearing the Vivienne Westwood suit from Kurt’s body, stripping him of his clothes and laying them out in the overly particular way Kurt insists upon.

Sebastian may be a monster, but he’s not a savage, and that contrast makes Kurt giggle.

Sebastian wastes no time nibbling a path down Kurt’s body, feeling his boyfriend tremble beneath him, enjoying the way his muscles twitch when he hits a spot that’s a bit more ticklish than the rest. Lately though, Sebastian has had a harder time than before getting lost in the sinful, decadent taste of Kurt’s blood. It’s different; the sweet undertone of it tainted by something bitter – not all together bad, just not all together Kurt.

Sebastian wondered when he first tasted it whether it was the city changing Kurt’s blood – the new atmosphere, the abundance of pollution, maybe some food he was eating at work, but some newly acquired animal instinct told Sebastian that wasn’t it. He had a suspicion, but he didn’t want to say it out loud, not willing to squash Kurt’s dreams by jumping to conclusions. Now as he slowly sinks his teeth into the warm flesh of Kurt’s inner thigh, he knows for sure.

Sebastian stops, pulling away quickly, and Kurt immediately notices.

“What’s wrong?” Kurt pants; gazing down at Sebastian’s confused expression with unabashed lust in his dark eyes.

“You…you taste different,” Sebastian replies with a frown. Kurt’s face twists, gasping in embarrassment.

“Not bad,” Sebastian hurries, “just…different. Wrong, somehow…”

Kurt’s eyes dart away and Sebastian knows that Kurt has been keeping something from him; a secret, and something big if the way he blushes a furious red is any indication.

“I…”

Sebastian doesn’t let him answer. Kurt is the master of the evade, and Sebastian knows he’s not about to simply tell him what’s going on. Instead, Sebastian crawls up Kurt’s body and bites into his arm, into the soft skin of his inner elbow since this is as close to Kurt’s heart as he dares to get. He is distracted for a moment by the way Kurt moans wantonly into the open air, and Sebastian almost lets it go, willing to put off discovering Kurt’s secret to get back to the business of giving him pleasure, but all of Sebastian’s senses are heightened and his curiosity overwhelms him.

He takes as much of Kurt’s blood as he dares and then closes the wound with his tongue. He sits up on his heels, holding this essence of Kurt’s life in his mouth, shutting his eyes to concentrate on chasing that foreign flavor that’s starting to take over the one Sebastian adores so much. He swallows, and suddenly everything becomes clear. He opens his eyes with a smile on his face, licking his lips.

If he had a heartbeat, it would be racing in his chest.

“Kurt,” Sebastian says quietly, his red eyes shining in the dark with unbridled joy. “Kurt, you’re dying.”

Kurt’s whole face changes, his lips twisting into a painful grimace; his eyes shift to a pale, watery blue, and the color drains from his face.

“You don’t have to look so fucking happy about it,” Kurt mutters in a wavering voice.

“How long have you known?” Sebastian says, still in awe, still so incredibly, morbidly happy that Kurt can almost find it in himself to share in his joy.

“Not too long,” Kurt confesses. “In fact, I was waiting on some more test results to confirm, but I guess that’s all moot now.”

Sebastian holds Kurt’s face in his hands and kisses him gently on the lips.

“Don’t you see?” Sebastian laughs lightly as if every dream he has ever had is about to come true, every wish he has ever made he’s about to cash in on. “I didn’t want to change you because you had your whole mortal life to live, but now you don’t. There’s no reason to wait. You and I…we can be together forever.”

Kurt scoots out from beneath Sebastian’s body and sits up, looking his boyfriend deep in the eyes. The red in them is unnerving, and Kurt has become an expert at imagining the way they once were, so green and full of life, like the new grass in spring.

Kurt has become an expert at lying to himself, especially lately. He lies to himself that he has a flesh and blood boyfriend. He lies that what he has with Sebastian is real. He lies and tells himself that he has more than enough time to fulfill all of his dreams.

But it’s moments like this one when he has to face the facts that none of it is real.

“Sebastian,” Kurt says, taking Sebastian’s cold hand and bringing it up to his chest, pressing it above his heart so Sebastian can feel the beating of it. “I love you…I do…so much…”

Kurt swallows hard as he feels the mood in the room change, aware that he’s making it change.

“But I don’t want to be a vampire.”

 


	83. Time Enough to Forgive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One-shot written for the prompt 'vampire'. Sebastian is a vampire, desperate to save his dying boyfriend, but Kurt doesn't want to become a vampire. No blood or gore, just conversation. AU. Supernatural. Romance. Soulmates. Vampire!Sebastian, Dying!Kurt Edit*** If you've read this before it's been slightly re-vamped (sorry for the pun) to fit the rest of the chapters.

Death wants to hide. It crawls into dark spaces, away from the light…away from the living. But death need not be so afraid. It can be just as bright, just as beautiful. Some beauty endures, regardless if it lives or dies.

Sebastian looks down at Kurt’s face, growing ever paler in the fading light, and smiles.

“In a moment, we’ll be together forever, my love,” Sebastian sighs, brushing the hair from Kurt’s eyes. Kurt blinks weakly, his glassy eyes fighting to focus on Sebastian’s burning red ones. Kurt tries to shake his head.

“I…I don’t want you to do this…” Kurt objects. “It’s my time.”

“Shhh.” Sebastian hushes Kurt, his smile growing ever wider. “I know you’re scared, but it’s alright. You’ll be happy with me. I promise.”

Kurt sighs. 

“You’re not listening to me,” Kurt says, sounding defeated. “You never listen.”

Sebastian doesn’t want to be angry with his beloved, but Kurt’s constant refusal wears on his patience.

“What are you so worried about?” Sebastian hisses, harsher than he intends. “Your soul? You don’t believe in God or heaven anyway! So why not stay here with me forever?”

It seems like only yesterday that Sebastian found out what he felt was wonderful news; that Kurt was dying. For Sebastian, it was redemption. The start of a new life for the two of them, that he wouldn't be damned because of one horrible mistake, but then Kurt devastated him by telling him that he didn't want it. He didn't want to be a vampire. Didn't want immortality.

It was like he was saying he didn't want Sebastian.

Sebastian became livid.

"What do you mean you don't want to be a vampire?" Sebastian had roared.

"Sebastian," Kurt said, reaching for a blanket to cover himself with. "Please try and understand..."

"Understand?" Sebastian bellowed. "What is there to understand!? We have an opportunity. Finally an opportunity to be together, and you're going to just throw it all away?"

"It's not an opportunity," Kurt bellowed back with equal fire, not willing to back down from what he fondly referred to as 'his demon boyfriend'. "It's damnation! You said so yourself."

"It was damnation because I wouldn't be able to have you," Sebastian explained, still furious. "But now, I can. We can. We will."

"No, Sebastian," Kurt said, holding firm. "No, I won't allow..."

"Won't allow what?" Sebastian laughed cruelly. "Can you fight me? No, you can't. When you're sick and dying and incapacitated, will you be able to fight me? No!"

"But..."

"End of discussion!" Sebastian grabbed Kurt's wrists and pinned him to the bed, smiling wide and showing every one of his gleaming white teeth and razor sharp fangs. "You are mine, and you will be mine for all eternity."

With that he buried himself deep into Kurt's body, fucking his boyfriend with more venom than he would have normally, but he never said the one thing that truly mattered.

_I don't want you to die, to disappear, because there's no way I could exist in this world without you._

Yes, it all seemed like yesterday to a monster with no concept of time, but for Kurt it was almost a year of mundane tests and painful treatments, of hope and heartbreak, of crying alone in the oncologist's office, wishing Sebastian were with him, to hold his hand. There were times when he almost completely broke down that he could feel Sebastian's presence in his mind, helping him stand taller, helping him carry on.

Sebastian made love to Kurt almost every night up until the end, reveling in the taste of Kurt's blood which became increasingly bitter as his disease progressed, believing that despite Kurt's constant protests they would spend eternity forever.

"Sebastian," Kurt mutters weakly, breaking Sebastian from his thoughts. “It’s…it’s just not natural, Sebastian.”

Sebastian can feel Kurt’s breathing become slow and faint. He shakes his head.

“And _this_ is natural?”

Sebastian can’t help his anger now, can’t help it when Kurt seems so willing to throw away everything they have together. “Dying before you’ve even had the chance to live is natural? Leaving me here alone… _that’s_ natural?”

Sebastian feels hot tears threatening to fall, but he refuses to let them.

No. Kurt doesn’t know. He doesn’t understand. There is too much at stake to give in to petty, stupid, human things…things that lesser beings would consider _natural_.

“Sebastian,” Kurt breathes painfully. “I love you. I do…but please…don’t do anything stupid.”

Sebastian smiles. Kurt has just given him his loophole.

_Don’t do anything stupid._

Sitting here and watching Kurt die would be stupid.

Not doing something to save Kurt’s life would be stupid.

Anyone would agree.

“Don’t worry, my darling,” Sebastian says soothingly, “I won’t do anything stupid. I promise.”

Sebastian kisses Kurt gently, lingering over his lips, waiting for the perfect moment…the moment between the end of life and the beginning of death when Sebastian will make his move.

Maybe Kurt will be angry. Maybe Kurt will even hate him.

Sebastian doesn’t care. Kurt has all of eternity to forgive him.


	84. Eternity Isn't Enough

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here is a follow up to the Vampire storyline that ended with 'Time Enough to Forgive'. Here we get to see if Sebastian really turned Kurt, and how Kurt reacts. Warnings for talk of intense pain, drinking blood, and starvation.

Death doesn't hurt.

Well, provided that you're not being flattened in a compactor or eaten piece by piece by a wild tiger, death shouldn't hurt.

It's as effortless as blinking.

As easy as falling asleep.

It's not a thought or a decision.

It's an outcome.

Or so Kurt has been told. Countless doctors, oncologists, and death preparation counselors all assure him that death is nothing to be afraid of. It's natural, inevitable, and they promise him that with the amount of medication they keep him on in the final stages as cancer eats away at his body – painless.

Kurt passes away quietly, cradled in Sebastian's arms, and the last thing he sees before his heavy eyelids drop forever is the gorgeous grass green of Sebastian's eyes.

The last thing he sees before he dies is a lie.

Apparently, it isn't the only one.

Because death is painful.

Agonizingly painful.

It sears his body, every inch, heat surging through his veins, starting from a point somewhere behind his neck and filling him with fire. He wants to scream but he can't move. His mouth doesn't open, his limbs useless, and he waits in agony for it all to end.

But there seems to be no end. For hours he simply burns, inside, outside, never ending…

He hears a rushing through his ears like wind battering his face and he wonders if he's falling. For the hundredth time he thinks, "Here it is. The end. Now it will be over."

Through the swishing and the wooshing he hears snippets of voices calling to him.

No…one voice calling to him.

Reaching out to him in the dark.

Cutting through the pain.

The roaring in his ears stops and the pain finally ends. It dissolves completely without an echo of it anywhere to be felt, but where Kurt expects to be absorbed by the oblivion that is the universe, he's still consciously aware.

He hears the pattering of cockroaches racing through the apartment walls.

He smells hot dogs cooking at Gray's Papya – ten miles away.

He feels the individually twined fibers of his cashmere sweater cocooned around his skin.

But it's the thirst – the overwhelming thirst engrained into every dehydrated cell of his body that forces him to open his eyes.

Countless signals assault his brain – too sharp, too bright, too much detail – and he shuts his eyes again. He whimpers; the sound of his voice so foreign to his acute ears that he bites his lip to silence himself.

"It's okay," a voice whispers, but the sound rings out like a bell with the clapper slicing into his ears.

"No," Kurt moans, raising his hands to cover his head, curling his body into a ball. "No, no, no."

"Shhh," Sebastian soothes, running a gentle hand down Kurt's back. "It'll be okay. You'll get used to it. It'll be fine."

Kurt rocks back and forth, trying to ignore the fabric that's insanely too soft for his skin, trying to push aside the pungent smell of cooking meat which is now revolting to him, and every single noise that's trying to worm its way into his brain – he needs to find a way to block them all out before he goes completely mad.

The thirst, though, refuses to be ignored.

Bit by bit he comes to his senses.

He's dead. He's supposed to be dead. So is this hell? What's happening to him?

"Just concentrate on my voice," Sebastian whispers. "Listen to my voice and shut out the rest."

"I can't," Kurt moans, red tears slipping down his cheeks. "I can't…it's too much…"

Sebastian remembers this. It's a fainter memory now than it was, but he can recall the fear, the sensory overload bordering on the brink of torture. When it happened to Sebastian he was alone. The man who had bitten him left him. Laughing, he left him in the shady hotel room Sebastian had rented for the night. Sebastian didn't know if the man had ever intended on coming back for him, but once his skin started to prickle with the rising of the sun his instincts took over and he buried himself deep within the earth where he stayed, screaming through his insanity, choking on loose soil as it filled his mouth. It pressed down on him until he realized that it wouldn't kill him because he was already dead.

"It won't get any better until you learn to ignore it."

Sebastian tries to help him, but Kurt isn't listening. He's so thirsty he feels like he'll dry up and split in two. Sebastian knows it's there and tries to think of any way to relieve it so that Kurt can cope; bide until the thirst strikes again.

Sebastian has an idea but he doesn't have the time to explain it; and even if he could make Kurt understand he's not sure Kurt would leave the safety of the apartment and go outside where the noise gets louder and louder. Sebastian scoops him up in his arms and carries him to the fire escape. Kurt, too distracted to argue, doesn't notice when Sebastian bounds up the metal ladder and leaps across the alley, jumping from rooftop to rooftop. Sebastian uses his senses to guide him, relying on his supernatural hearing and smell to tell him where he needs to go.

Kurt isn't like him. He wouldn't kill someone to feed his own thirst, so Sebastian needs to find the next best thing.

Sebastian lands on the helipad of a hospital and stops, taking a deep breath in to make sure he's found the right place. He finds a grate in the wall and breaks into the ventilation system. Awkwardly, he carries Kurt down to the lower level, where the morgue and blood storage is located. Sebastian manages to find an exhaust vent that leads straight into the cooler.

Kurt's reaction to a room full of refrigerated blood is instantaneous.

He stops weeping, relaxing in Sebastian's arms as the scent of blood compels him. In the blink of an eye Kurt is out Sebastian's arms and on his feet, about to tear through the cooler doors.

"Hold on now," Sebastian says, sneaking in front of Kurt and undoing the bolt before Kurt can rip the doors off its hinges. "If you destroy the place we'll never be able to come back."

Sebastian watches Kurt feed, sucking through pint after pint of blood, not leaving a single drop behind in the plastic pouches. He takes more than his fill but Sebastian doesn't stop him. Why should he? The more Kurt eats the more he'll be able to stave off the thirst.

In minutes Kurt is sated, sighing with relief, relaxing back in on himself with a beautiful smile on his blood stained lips as if he's already forgotten what he is and what he had been doing.

"How do you feel?" Sebastian asks.

Kurt glances around him at the emptied plastic husks that were once full of human blood. The smile on his face fades, and he rises to his feet.

"Empty," Kurt says. "I feel empty."

Sebastian locks the coolers door and Kurt pitches the plastic pouches into the nearest biohazard container. They make their way back up the ventilation system, cleaning up any trace that they had been in the room; not too hard since Kurt didn't spill a single drop of blood. They climb back up through the vents, the scent of the putrid night air, cluttered with pollution and exhaust, guiding them up onto the roof. They crawl out through the opening and Sebastian fixes the grate back into place.

They walk across the rooftop towards the edge. Sebastian stops at the guard rail, but Kurt ducks under and walks out onto the ledge, right to the very end. He crouches low, wind whipping his hair around his perfect, porcelain skin, and looks out onto the city down below.

"How did you do it?" Kurt mutters, his voice flat, emotionless. "How did you control it?"

"You never control it," Sebastian says sadly. "You learn to ignore it."

"But how?" The desperate sound in Kurt's voice manages to reach a place in Sebastian that he thought no longer existed.

"I had you as my anchor," Sebastian confesses. "I can be your anchor, too."

"You had my blood," Kurt accuses, throwing his hands up over his ears to block out his own booming voice. "I don't have yours. I don't have an anchor. I have nothing!"

"You have me," Sebastian pleads. "We have each other!"

"But I didn't want any of this!" Kurt cries, bloody tears returning, following the tracks of already dried tears, tinging his cheeks a darker, grotesque red.

"I didn't have a choice!" Sebastian insists. "You were dying! Right in my arms, you were dying!"

"Then you should have let me die!"

Kurt's voice is breathless and broken. He spins around on the ledge, searching for a way out. Sebastian reaches out for him, but Kurt puts a hand up to stop him.

"No!" Kurt says, turning to look down at the busy street below. "No! Leave me alone. I want to be alone."

"Where are you going?" Sebastian asks, panic seeping into him at the prospect of Kurt leaving him to go meet the dawn.

"I need some time," Kurt says. "I need to think."

Sebastian takes a step forward, and Kurt leaps. Sebastian runs to the ledge, looking out, up and down, all around the street below. He tries to listen for the sound of Kurt's footsteps landing anywhere in the city, but it's too late.

Kurt is gone.

Sebastian tries to track him, tries to catch any hint of his scent in an attempt to catch up with him but Kurt is surprisingly fast.

All through the night Sebastian searches for Kurt, putting off feeding to give him more time before sunrise. He returns to the apartment, barely making it before the first morning rays of light singe his skin. He hides in the dark apartment, the long daylight hours ticking by slowly, the oppressive sunlight keeping him penned in, unable to do anything but lie still and hope that Kurt is safe beneath the earth, that he didn't surrender to the light.

Long weeks pass, and every day is the same. Sebastian leaves the moment the sun sets in search of Kurt, returning before the dawn to hide out during the day, hoping each time that Kurt will be there waiting for him.

Almost a month passes and Kurt has yet to return.

Eventually Sebastian stops looking. He stays in Kurt's bed, buried beneath the sheets that still smell like beautiful, delicate, human Kurt. He feels his body shriveling from dehydration but he doesn't care. The thirst dies down to a numbing ache that no longer drives his existence.

He has nothing to exist for. Sebastian made a mistake – a horrible, terrible, heinous mistake. Kurt didn't want to be a vampire, but Sebastian didn't listen, and now his arrogance is his undoing.

Kurt will never forgive him.

Kurt is not coming back. He has most likely seen his last sunrise.

Now he's lost everything.

Kurt was a stronger man than Sebastian ever was.

Sebastian always swore he would follow Kurt into death but he waits a few days more, not for the love of his life who he knows is gone but trying to find the courage to end his own suffering.

Sebastian feels the sun dip down below the horizon. He crawls out from beneath the blankets and watches as the shadows in the bedroom start to lengthen. With his head on Kurt's pillow, he watches the last rays of sunset paint the sky, and then disappear completely.

He has lain awake all day planning out his last night as a vampire. He will travel to all the places that were special to Kurt – his childhood home, the bank of the Auglaize River where they shared their first kiss, Breadstix where the ate dinner every Saturday night, even McKinley High School. Finally he'll find a nice place to rest outside the Smythe family crypt in Westerville and let the light of day take him, leaving him a scorch of ash on the grass-covered earth.

His legs are weak, but he stumbles toward the window, confident he can make it to Ohio before his strength gives out completely, but when he reaches it he sees an angel blocking his exit; an angel wild and terrible, with wide red eyes, skin deceptively pure and white, strong hands gripping the frame of the window, staring down at him.

Sebastian knows he's hallucinating. The ethereal creature that looks so much like his Kurt can't be real, but he steps back anyway. The angel rushes in and follows him, catching him before he trips and falls.

"Sebastian!" Kurt cries with worry and surprise, carrying Sebastian's body to the bed and laying him down. Sebastian sighs in defeat, what remained of his energy gone. "What happened to you?"

"I thought you weren't coming back," Sebastian says, his throat dry, his voice raspy from disuse. "I thought you went away to…end it."

Kurt shakes his head slowly, a sad smile ghosting over his lips.

"I wouldn't do that without saying good-bye."

Sebastian licks his lips, trying to find any moisture in his mouth to help him talk.

"Is that why you came back?" he asks. "To say good-bye?"

Kurt chuckles and pulls Sebastian close.

"No," Kurt says.

"Why not?" Sebastian asks, genuinely confused. "I thought you were angry with me."

"I was," Kurt admits. "But I had some time to think…"

Sebastian laughs sarcastically.

"Maybe I took a little longer than I expected." Kurt looks guilty; as guilty as a soulless monster can look, and Sebastian wraps his arms around him.

"But you're back now?" Sebastian asks, hopeful.

"Yes." Kurt pulls back to look into Sebastian's eyes, the red flame that once burned so brightly now so close to going out. "I'm not saying good-bye to you."

Kurt gathers Sebastian up in his arms the way Sebastian did on that first night and walks with him to the window.

"We're going to get you better," Kurt says, laying out his plan for the sad specter cradled in his arms. "And then we're going to travel the world together. Do everything and anything we could ever dream of, and then when we're done, we're going to do it all over again."

"And sex," Sebastian squeaks out with what's left of his voice. "We're going to have lots of sex."

Kurt rolls his eyes.

"I guess we can find time to do that."

Kurt stops on the fire escape and places a gentle kiss on Sebastian's dried, chapped lips.

"We have an eternity," Sebastian whispers against Kurt's lips.

Kurt smiles and shakes his head, leaning close enough to brush his lips over Sebastian's cold cheek, trailing kisses down to his chin.

"An eternity isn't going to be enough."


	85. An Unexpected Valentine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Prompt 'a single Kurt gets an unexpected Valentine invitation'. Dalton AU. (Warning for mention of Blaine but not Klaine.)

A throng of overexcited, hormonal teenaged boys walk past Kurt’s open door, laughing and joking and talking animatedly. Kurt drops his shoulders and groans. He gets up from his desk chair and shuts the door, nodding and smiling halfheartedly at the few boys who see him and give him a, “What’s up, Hummel?”

Nothing’s up. Not for Kurt, at least.

It’s Valentine’s Day.

Kurt hates Valentine’s Day.

It’s just an excuse to sell cards and candy on a holiday. Still, it sucks to be the only one without a date. Wes has plans with his girlfriend Cynthia from Crawford Country Day, Dalton’s sister school. David, Trent, and Thad all got fake i.d.’s and are planning on hitting up a night club in Columbus. Nick and Jeff left right after classes let out for the day and probably wouldn’t be sneaking back till well after curfew. Westerville High School is having a _Sweethearts and Stags_ dance, and it seems half the Dalton student body managed to get invites.

Kurt doesn’t really care too much about high school dances, though.

What really stings is that he was stood up by Blaine – the only boy he _wanted_ to be with tonight.

Stood up in essence since they really didn’t have a date, per se. Kurt was kind of Blaine’s consolation prize. Blaine had actually asked out another guy earlier in the day; Jeremiah - a junior manager at the Gap. After a big, and frankly inappropriate song and dance number at his work Jeremiah got fired and afterwards told Blaine point blank that he had no chance. So, Blaine turned to Kurt with a self-depreciating half-smile and said, “Well, I guess you’re stuck with me tonight.”

Not that Kurt had minded. Being stuck with Blaine sounded like the perfect way to spend the evening.

But apparently shit rolls downhill. Jeremiah’s on-again, off-again boy(ish)friend broke up with him, and Jeremiah called Blaine last minute looking for a sympathetic shoulder to cry on. Which is why Blaine, dressed impeccably in red skinny jeans, a short-sleeved button down black Brooks Brothers shirt, and a red bowtie is on his way to watch an Indie double-feature with an ex-junior manager from the Gap, and Kurt is getting a head start on a Hemingway essay that isn’t due for another month.

The boys of Dalton leave the dorms en masse, and in no time at all the halls are empty and quiet again. Kurt glances at his copy of _For Whom the Bell Tolls,_ cover adornedwith a black and white photo of the ruggedly handsome author in his early years.

“I guess it’s just you and me tonight, Ernie,” Kurt says, picking up the book and flipping to where he had stuck his bookmark in the spine.

After an hour Kurt has only succeeded in reading the same paragraph three times, distracted over and over by images of Blaine running his fingers through Jeremiah’s enviable head of honey-colored hair, their hands brushing together as they reach for the popcorn at the exact same time, or quite possibly even making out in the back row of the theater.

Kurt sighs heavily, leaning back in his chair and staring up unblinkingly at the ceiling, forcing himself to concentrate on anything else than the thought of Blaine and Jeremiah sharing shy kisses between sips of soda, their arms wrapped around each other, ignoring the world in the middle of a crowded room...

Kurt hears a slight scratching, unmistakable but faint, and he jumps almost completely out of his seat.

“Great,” Kurt thinks, getting up from his chair slowly and scanning the floor of his room, mildly disgusted. “I got stood up and now I have rats.”

Kurt walks to his bed, bracing himself to pull it away from the wall and encounter some twitchy little vermin huddled in the corner when he hears the scratching again, louder this time, but not coming from his bed.

It’s coming from his door.

Kurt’s eyes widen as he looks at it, amazed that anyone would be left in the dorms beside him. He was sure everyone had gone.

He hears the scratching once more, but this time accompanied by a, “Geez, Hummel. Would you open the fucking door?”

_That voice._

_It can’t be._

Kurt walks to his door and opens it a crack.

_It is._

Sebastian Smythe is standing at his door, surprisingly debonair in head to toe Burberry, wearing gray slacks and a green shirt that compliments his eyes, making them look even a shade darker than their usual smoldering emerald…not that Kurt has ever noticed. He’s carrying a bouquet of white roses with blush tips – Kurt’s favorites, incidentally, but how Sebastian knew or where he got them from, Kurt can’t even venture to guess.

“Sebastian?” Kurt asks, too dumbfounded to sound annoyed. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Could you let me in, Hummel?” Sebastian starts in a rush, leaning in toward the door in an attempt to get Kurt to open it wider, “I waited until everyone was gone because I didn’t want anyone seeing me at your door carrying flowers.”

“Nice,” Kurt says, but he doesn’t open the door any further, “but that doesn’t explain why you’re here.”

Sebastian sighs, looking left and right, seeming worried that someone might spring down the hallway any minute and catch him.

“I knew you didn’t have a date tonight,” Sebastian says, his face tight and strained as if he is suddenly in a great amount of physical pain, “and I wanted to know…”

Sebastian sweeps his eyes around the empty hallway one more time before he looks at Kurt.

“ _Willyouhavedinnerwithmetonight_?”

The words tumble from Sebastian’s mouth so quickly that Kurt barely understands them. He stares at Sebastian for a second, trying to make sense of them, and when he does his face falls. He doesn’t need this; doesn’t need the criminal chipmunk at his door making fun of him.

“Not tonight, Sebastian,” Kurt grumbles, closing his door in Sebastian’s face, “I’m not in the mood.”

Sebastian stops the door with his foot wedged in the remaining open space. Kurt looks at the toe of the black Oxford lodged in the doorway and opens it again.

“Look…” Sebastian takes a deep breath, fixing Kurt with as sincere a stare as he can muster under the circumstances, “I heard about Blaine’s last minute rendezvous with that guy from WalMart…”

“The Gap,” Kurt corrects him.

“Like I care,” Sebastian continues on unfazed. “Even if you are Captain Super Gay and I pretty much want to shove a sock in your mouth every time I hear you speak…that wasn’t cool…what Blaine did.”

Kurt narrows his eyes at the cynical man with his foot stuck in his door.

“You’re serious, aren’t you?” Kurt raises a skeptical eyebrow as he waits for Sebastian’s answers.

“Yup.” Sebastian’s smug smile returns with a vengeance. “I’m serious.”

Kurt opens the door wider and Sebastian pulls his foot back, giving it a little shake to revive the circulation. Kurt crosses his arms over his chest and takes in the full picture of Sebastian, his stylish outfit, and those beautiful roses. Kurt’s definitely flattered by the sentiment, but he still finds it difficult to believe that Sebastian came up with this all by himself...at least not without a gun to his temple.

“Who put you up to this?” he asks, not completely convinced. “Did Blaine ask you to do this because he felt guilty? Did the Warblers pay you…”

Sebastian rolls his eyes through Kurt’s accusations.

“I wouldn’t do shit for Blaine, and the Warblers couldn’t afford me, princess,” Sebastian snarks, starting to sound irritated. “Look, I made reservations so are you coming or not? Because believe it or not I can get a last minute date on Valentine’s Day.”

Kurt can definitely believe that, but as he looks into Sebastian’s anxious face he can’t help the feeling that he might actually be hurt if Kurt turned him down.

“I’ll get my coat,” Kurt says, turning back to his room and heading for his closet.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Sebastian says, stepping inside the doorway to Kurt’s room, “aren’t you going to change?”

Kurt looks down at his own ensemble - vintage grey jacquard Vivienne Westwood trousers and a plum cashmere sweater with a mock scarf.

“No. Why?”

“Well…” Sebastian places the roses down gently on Kurt’s desk, giving Kurt a sidelong glance, “I’d prefer it if you wore something from the men’s department.”

Kurt puts his hands on his hips and scoffs.

“I’m not getting changed,” he says darkly.

Sebastian looks him over one more time, his smirk transforming slowly into a hungry grin.

“You know, Hummel,” he says, walking up to Kurt while his eyes shamelessly devour every inch of Kurt’s body, “you’re right. Now that I look at it, there’s something about this outfit…” Sebastian steps in close to Kurt, invading his personal space, standing so close Kurt can feel the heat radiate off Sebastian’s skin. “We don’t have to go out,” Sebastian whispers, face moving in slowly, lips hovering an inch from Kurt’s mouth. “We can just stay here…”

Kurt looks into Sebastian’s playful green eyes, unwavering, completely unmoved.

“Give me a minute,” Kurt says finally, “and I’ll go change.”

 

 

 


	86. A Single Strand of Vanity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Combining anon prompts ‘Insecure!Seb’ with ‘Sebastian has a secret he’s been keeping from Kurt’. Warning for a tiny, sort of sexist comment. Futurefic, angst, emotional hurt/comfort, AU.

“That’s it!” Kurt screeches, storming into the penthouse and slamming the door after him. He tosses his costume, his keys, and various other items onto the sofa as he continues to wail, “Done! Fini! Washed up!”

“What in the world are you talking about?” Sebastian calls out as he walks in from the kitchen, drying his hands on a lemon yellow dish towel from a set Kurt purchased because he felt the kitchen needed to feel ‘sunnier’.

“I’m retiring from Broadway before my bloom has time to fade.” Kurt exhales dramatically, dropping down onto the sofa beside his discarded things. “Well, fade more than it already has.” Kurt covers his face with his hands and whimpers softly.

“Kurt…” Sebastian bends over to give his husband’s knee a shake, “…can you please tell me what you’re talking about? Why are you retiring? What bloom is fading? You’re only thirty-five fucking years old.”

Kurt gasps.

“Why would you say that?” Kurt groans, his voice muffled by his hands. “Why do you always want to hurt me?”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Sebastian says, rolling his eyes and sitting down in the empty space between Kurt and his costume, “but you’re not making any sense.”

Kurt lets his hands drop to his lap, staring at Sebastian with his mouth agape. Kurt drops his head down and points emphatically to a vague location on the crown of his head.

“Do you see this, Bas?” Kurt says, and this time he sounds near to tears. “Do you see what I’m pointing to?”

Sebastian peers at the top of Kurt’s head, shrugging even though Kurt can’t see.

“I…I see your hair?” Sebastian asks because he’s not too sure what the correct answer is.

“Look closer,” Kurt says, his voice clipped. “What…do…you…see?”

Sebastian shakes his head.

“Babe, can you tell me what I’m looking for because I don’t see shit but you’re hair.”

Kurt sighs, long and drawn out, mildly aggravated as if Sebastian is missing something blatantly and obviously staring him in the face.

“It’s a silver hair,” Kurt says, looking back up at Sebastian with tears in his eyes. “A silver hair!”

Sebastian tilts Kurt’s head toward the light and looks again, combing through Kurt’s hair with the tips of his fingers.

“Kurt,” Sebastian says, pushing Kurt upright, “I’m sorry that you’re so upset, but I don’t see anything.”

“Well, it’s there.” Kurt leans his back against the sofa and stares up at the ceiling. “Emilia, my hair stylist, found it when she was putting on my wig for this evening’s performance.”

“So, let me get this straight,” Sebastian says holding back a laugh, “you’re going to scrap your dreams, everything you’ve worked hard for, and a three year extension on your contract, over one silver hair?”

Kurt frowns at the condescension in Sebastian’s voice.

“You don’t get it, do you?” Kurt cries. “This is the beginning of the end! Today it’s one silver hair, tomorrow it’s three, and before you know it, people are calling me distinguished and saying that I’m ‘aging gracefully’…” He raises his hands to make air quotes for emphasis.

“But, you _are_ going to age gracefully,” Sebastian reassures Kurt, patting his knee. “In fact, you’re going to be one of those hot old folks. You’re going to be a G-PILF.”

Kurt rolls his head to look at Sebastian’s smirking face.

“G-PILF?” Kurt asks with disgust already lacing his voice since he knows it’s probably something distasteful.

“Grandpa I’d love to fuck,” Sebastian explains with a wink.

Kurt wants to laugh but he can’t, so he starts crying instead.

“Babe…” Sebastian slides closer and puts his arms around Kurt’s trembling body, “…calm down. This isn’t the end of the world.”

“ _You_ can say that,” Kurt mutters. “You don’t have a single silver hair on your head, and you’re, like, a year older than me aren’t you?”

Kurt feels Sebastian’s body become rigid and starts to cry harder.

“I knew it!” Kurt whines at Sebastian’s reaction. “You’re disgusted by me!”

“Oh, fuck, Kurt!” Sebastian complains. “I’m not disgusted by you. I…”

Sebastian raises a hip off the couch, reaches into his back pocket and pulls out his wallet. Kurt watches Sebastian rifle through the credit cards and pictures, pulling out a single, thin business card. He reluctantly hands the card to Kurt.

Kurt takes the powder blue card and flips it over. An embossed black silhouette of scissors takes up one side of the card and to the right of that the name ‘Paolo’. Three sets of phone numbers are embossed below the name.

“I don’t understand,” Kurt says, wrinkling his nose. “Paolo…is he your therapist?”

“If I was a woman, then yeah, you could consider him my therapist,” Sebastian says, plucking the card out of Kurt’s hand and tucking it back in his wallet. “Paolo’s my…” Kurt leans in close, waiting for Sebastian to continue. Sebastian looks at Kurt’s watery eyes and sighs. “He’s my colorist, okay!?”

This time Sebastian’s the one who hides his face behind his hands.

“Sebastian?” Kurt says softly, comforting his husband with a hand on his shoulder. “How long?”

“Since the first time I came down to the theater to see you rehearse,” Sebastian confesses. “I saw a few silver hairs in the mirror that morning, but I didn’t care. It wasn’t a big deal, but then…”

Sebastian’s words drift off and Kurt massages his shoulder for encouragement.

“I saw all those dancers in the show,” Sebastian continues, “all those buff, gorgeous, _young_ male dancers, and I realized that they get to be with you more than I do, and some day you’d notice my hair and maybe…”

Sebastian pauses too long, and Kurt realizes he probably won’t continue.

“Oh, Sebastian,” Kurt says, “I _love_ you, and besides, you’re the sexiest thing on two legs. No one can replace you.”

Sebastian turns his head to look at Kurt.

“Really?” he asks sheepishly.

“Absolutely.” Kurt kisses Sebastian’s forehead and gets a wicked idea. He knows this probably isn’t the best time to tease Sebastian but he can’t help himself. “And no matter how many orgies we have back stage, I’ll always come home to you, old man.”

“Fuck you,” Sebastian mutters, pushing Kurt aside and standing up quickly, stomping through the living room and back into the kitchen.

“Wait! Wait!” Kurt calls after him around choked laughter. “Not so fast, Sebastian! You might fall and break a hip!”


	87. Everyone Loves Versace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is just a little one-shot I wrote while I’m trying to clear my head. Kurt goes to Sebastian’s dorm room at NYU and is overwhelmed by a powerful smell of cologne that’s not Sebastian’s, and Kurt’s afraid Sebastian’s friendship with Hunter is turning into something more. (Inspired by anon prompt ‘Seb smells like someone else’s cologne, and by Nolan Gerard Funk’s hot Versace photo shoot.)
> 
> Warning for language. Futurefic, college AU, angst, romance.

Kurt walks into Sebastian’s dorm room and is immediately knocked backward by the horrendously powerful smell.

“Oh dear God! Kurt exclaims, “What the fuck is that…”

Kurt walks into Sebastian’s bathroom and stops at the gorgeous sight of his delicious boyfriend, shirtless, bent over the sink splashing water on his face and neck. Kurt smiles, eying the discarded Ralph Lauren polo hanging over the shower curtain rod. Sebastian doesn’t seem to notice Kurt over the sound of the water rushing from the faucet, and before Kurt wraps his arms around his boyfriend’s waist he takes a moment to pull down the shirt and give it a sniff, searching for the scent of Hugo Boss that Sebastian wears to cancel out the stench that seems to be omnipresent in the whole dorm room.

Kurt bunches the material beneath his nose and inhales deep.

He chokes on that same overpowering odor. It’s strong; so strong it makes Kurt’s eyes water, but now that it’s inches from his nose Kurt realizes it’s also familiar.

Sebastian turns off the water and turns from the sink, reaching for a towel hanging behind the bathroom door. When he sees Kurt standing behind him with the polo pressed beneath his nose, Sebastian smiles, reaching past his boyfriend for the towel on the door and kissing him on the forehead in the process. Kurt’s eyes flick up and his eyes widen at the sight or a red bruise blooming on Sebastian’s neck.

“I’m sorry I didn’t meet you downstairs like we planned, babe,” Sebastian mutters, his response muffled by the towel he uses to pat his face dry. “But I had sort of a clothing crisis.”

The color drains from Kurt’s cheeks as everything clicks into place. This putrid scent churning Kurt’s stomach is that same cologne Hunter’s been bathing in for the last six weeks since he scored his Versace modeling contract. That stupid contract has been the only subject of conversation in their lives ever since Hunter made some offhanded comment about wanting Sebastian to be his financial advisor, a concept Kurt considered premature considering Sebastian still had two years left in his Master’s program at NYU to complete.

Kurt tried to push it aside, tries not to get too annoyed (a word he prefers more than ‘jealous’ which he absolutely is not) when Sebastian cancels their lunch dates to go to business meetings with Hunter and his agent. He swallows his pride when Sebastian gushes about Hunter’s new success. Kurt knows that Hunter and Sebastian have been friends since their days at Dalton, but lately they’re nearly inseparable.

Now things have obviously changed, and the evidence is getting darker and spreading all over the side of Sebastian’s neck.

“Kurt? Are you okay?” Sebastian says, putting a hand on Kurt’s shoulder and staring with concern into his watery blue eyes. “There’s something important that I wanted to tell you…”

“You mean that you’re having an affair with Hunter?” Kurt snaps, tossing the shirt angrily into the shower.

Sebastian steps back, jerking away from Kurt, stunned.

“What…”

“Don’t try to deny it!” Kurt screeches. “I smell him all over you!” Kurt scrunches his nose in disgust as he catches another whiff of the pungent cologne.

“What…” Sebastian stutters out again, unable to put together a coherent sentence while Kurt rails on with his accusations, tears starting to run down his cheek.

“You spend all your time together…”

“He’s trying to help me get an internship!” Sebastian finally manages to get in edgewise.

“Really?” Kurt sniffles, putting his hands on his hips. “Does part of getting you an internship include sucking on your neck?”

Sebastian shakes his head, his hand automatically reaching up to cover the red bruise.

“Not remotely bi-curious, my ass,” Kurt barks.

“That’s…that’s just a rash,” Sebastian insists, “from that awful cologne he’s always wearing.”

“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” Kurt scoffs, wiping hot tears from his cheeks with shaking fingertips. “Don’t treat me like I’m stupid!”

“Then stop acting like it!” Sebastian shouts, stepping into Kurt’s space, nearly nose to nose with his unreasonable boyfriend.

Kurt gasps, and with barely a thought, slaps Sebastian, slaps him hard enough to send him flying backward into the sink.

Sebastian puts a hand to his stinging cheek, his mouth set in a tight line, jaw clenched.

Kurt stares at the never before seen look of rage burning in his green eyes, and inside his chest Kurt starts to shrink away, frightened for a moment over how Sebastian might react.

“Okay, princess,” Sebastian says with dangerous and spine-chilling calm, “you’re coming with me.”

Sebastian grabs Kurt’s shoulders and spins him around before Kurt has a chance to react and run. Kurt tries to wrench out of Sebastian’s grasp but Sebastian’s hands are locked around his biceps like steel vices. Sebastian pushes Kurt along, out the door and down the hallway.

“Where the fuck are you taking me, asshole?” Kurt grumbles, but Sebastian gives him a shake and Kurt quiets immediately.

“I’m going to show you something,” Sebastian growls behind Kurt’s ear, leading him down the hallway and up a flight of stairs.

Kurt starts to feel more indignant as they approach a door he’s seen way too many times for his taste lately.

“What? We’re going to your whore’s room?” Kurt says. “Sorry, but I’m not really up for a threesome. I’ve seen Hunter’s pictures and I’m not as impressed as you seem to be.”

“Can you shut your fucking mouth for just one second?” Sebastian asks. “Or do you physically lack the ability to stop talking?”

Sebastian stops in front of the door, releasing one of Kurt’s arms to knock loudly. Kurt tries to take the opportunity to pull away, but Sebastian refuses to let him go.

The door swings open, and before another word is spoken Sebastian shoves Kurt inside and closes it behind him to contain the fog of cologne that emanates from Hunter’s room. Sebastian doesn’t even have to put his ear up to the door to hear Hunter’s exaggerated voice basically yelling at Kurt.

“Hey, Kurt! Did you stop by to try the new smell? Of course you did! Everyone loves Versace. It’s called Versace Pour Homme. I sprayed it on Sebastian earlier but I think he’s allergic. Oh, did he tell you about the internship? He starts on Monday!”

Sebastian takes a few deep breaths to calm himself, listening to Kurt stutter polite apologies, trying desperately to find an out to the conversation and leave. The longer Hunter keeps Kurt trapped in his palace of stench, the more Sebastian finds himself slowly laughing. He sees the doorknob turn frantically left and right, hears it jiggle as Kurt tries to open the door, probably partially in an effort to breathe. Sebastian takes pity on his boyfriend. Kurt’s suffered enough.

Sebastian opens the door with a huge smirk on his face.

“Sorry, Hunter,” Sebastian says, wrapping an arm around Kurt’s chest and pulling him from the room, “I have to take him back now.”

“Sure thing,” Hunter calls out. “See you guys later—“

Sebastian cuts Hunter off when he closes the door, not able to take another second of the Versace cloud that’s threatening to kill them both. Kurt coughs into his fist, doubled over as he attempts to catch his breath. Sebastian watches him, schooling his face into a blank expression to hide his amusement at his boyfriend’s agony.

Kurt takes in a deep, long breath through his nose, letting fresh air fill his lungs so he can stand up straight and figure out the best way to beg for Sebastian’s forgiveness.

“I…”

“Yes, Hummel,” Sebastian says, his voice dry and serious, but his eyes shimmering with laughter. “What is it?”

“I…” Kurt swallows hard, his eyes meeting Sebastian’s glare. “I’m sorry.”

“Excuse me?” Sebastian leans in, cupping a hand around his ear. “I didn’t quite hear that.”

Kurt sighs and looks down at his feet, red streaks coloring his face, a combination of embarrassment and near asphyxiation.

“I’m sorry,” Kurt repeated. “I’m so, so sorry that I accused you of cheating. A-and I didn’t even listen to your good news, and now Hunter ruined your surprise…”

Sebastian walks in close, crowding Kurt against the wall and kisses him, lips sliding against his with more tenderness than Kurt would have expected.

“I’m sorry I slapped you, Bas,” Kurt whispers against his lips, Sebastian barely breaking away from his kiss.

“That’s okay,” Sebastian says, closing in to kiss Kurt again. “You’re lucky you’re so fucking hot when you get all possessive and mad.” Sebastian moans into Kurt’s mouth when Kurt’s arms wrap around him, a hand trailing down Sebastian’s back to squeeze his ass. Sebastian picks him up, wrapping Kurt’s legs around his waist, and carries him back downstairs to his dorm room. “Maybe we can lock my door and you can slap me again.”

 


	88. Unexpected House Guests

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, to lighten the mood I wrote this romantic, fluffy little futurefic AU. Rated M for mentions of sex and language. Warning for brief mention of Blaine.

“Okay, for an orange wedge, ‘In the game of lacrosse, how many players are on a standard league men’s team?’”

Sebastian peers over the edge of his card to catch a glimpse of Kurt’s face, smirking at his boyfriend’s blank and confused expression. Kurt squints, concentrating hard to make sense of what Sebastian said.

“What in hell makes you think that I would know the answer to a question like that?” he asks.

“I don’t,” Sebastian says with a wink. “That’s why I’m winning.”

Kurt reaches over the game board to smack the card out of Sebastian’s hand but the sound of the doorbell chiming interrupts their game.

“That’s my cue,” Kurt says, disappearing into the kitchen.

Sebastian heads to the door, but before he can even ask who it is a hyper voice calls out, “Bas! Open up! The party bus is here!”

“Hey, Jeff,” Sebastian groans, opening the door for his intrusive friends.

“Sebastian, buddy,” Wes says, clapping Sebastian on the shoulder, “we’re taking the night club tour of the west end. Come with us and get your drunk on!”

A murmured chant of ‘Bas, Bas, Bas, Bas…’ rises up from Nick, Trent, and David, swaying behind Wes as if they may have already had one too many in the bus on the way over.

“I can’t tonight, guys.” Sebastian leans up against the door frame, watching as Jeff seems to forget about Sebastian altogether in favor of pressing his boyfriend up against the wall and devouring his face. Sebastian grins at Wes who looks at the couple and rolls his eyes.

“And _why_ can’t you?” Trent asks, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.

“Because I already have company,” Sebastian says, closing his door to block the view from David’s prying eyes.

“Yeah, like you had company last night, and the night before, and all of last weekend,” David whines.

“So?”

“So, when are you going to introduce us to this man who keeps you on lock down 24/7?” David hiccups and giggles, swaying too far to one side and falling against Trent’s shoulder.

“When you guys stop dropping by unannounced and prove yourselves worthy to be in his presence.”

Wes shakes his head.

“We can take a hint, Bas.” Wes smiles at his friend and wraps an arm around his neck in a pseudo-embrace, “No need to be so rude.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Sebastian mutters dismissively but still letting Wes hug him, “I don’t know why you guys expect me to act any different.”

“Wishful thinking,” Wes laughs. “I’m hoping that a steady sex life might change your ‘tude, but I think it makes it worse.”

“Well, let me get back to it and we’ll see.”

“You heard the man,” David calls louder than socially acceptable for a residential hallway, “let’s get our drunk on so he can get his ass-sex on.”

The tipsy group dissolves into fits of laughter, which leads to Jeff accidentally spitting into a disgruntled Nick’s mouth mid-kiss.

“Bye,” Sebastian calls into the havoc, escaping back into his apartment and locking the door behind him. Laughing under his breath, Sebastian turns and sees Kurt standing in the doorway to the kitchen trying to balance a tray of cheese and crackers.

“Oh, babe,” Sebastian rushes over to help with the tray, “you didn’t have to do that.”

“Well, I have to take care of my person,” Kurt says, the smile on his face small and wistful.

“Let’s get back to me kicking your butt so you can really take care of me.” Sebastian kisses Kurt on the cheek, then the neck, then nibbles his earlobe in an attempt to get Kurt to laugh, which he does lightly, unable to resist Sebastian’s playful mood.

“Why don’t you go out with your friends?” Kurt asks, settling back down on the floor in front of his game piece.

“Because I see those losers all the time,” Sebastian answers simply, popping a cube of cheese in his mouth. “I work with Wes, I have lunch with Trent and David every Tuesday and Thursday, and Jeff is like a fucking bad penny. He just pops up whenever the hell he wants.”

Kurt nods, bobbing his head as he watches Sebastian toss a cube of cheese into the air and catch it deftly in his mouth.

“So you mean to tell me you enjoy this?” Kurt gestures around them with his arms outstretched. “Staying inside on a Friday night playing Trivial Pursuit with me?”

Sebastian matches Kurt’s suddenly stormy gaze with a lurid stare of his own.

“Are you going to fuck me later tonight?”

“Of course,” Kurt says with an exasperated sigh.

“Then, yes,” Sebastian says, his grin growing, “I am _thoroughly_ enjoying myself.”

“I just don’t want you to get lonely,” Kurt confesses. His eyes light up a bit as a new thought enters his head. “You know, the guys have always been pretty cool. Maybe they’ll accept the fact that I’m…you know…different now.”

“Oh, I know they will,” Sebastian agrees, “especially Jeff. And once he realizes you’re here, I’ll never get a moment alone with you again. I want to keep you to myself a little bit longer.”

Kurt fiddles with his game piece on the board, twirling it around with the tip of his finger. Sebastian sighs as Kurt’s far away expression. He gets up from his spot and moves to sit behind him, resting his head on Kurt’s shoulder.

“Look, even you said that you don’t know how long this is going to last,” Sebastian whispers. “How long you can keep this up. And…I don’t want to miss a moment I get to spend with you.”

“Well, that’s quite a change from when we were back in high school,” Kurt chuckles, turning to rub noses with his stubborn boyfriend.

“In high school I was kind of an asshole,” Sebastian admits, slipping his arms carefully around Kurt’s waist, “and truthfully, you didn’t dress as well then as you do now.”

Kurt wrenches his arm back to elbow Sebastian in the stomach, but Sebastian dodges quickly and Kurt’s arm slips right past him.

“I know I haven’t told you this,” Sebastian says, shifting to lay his head on the floor beside Kurt’s knee and gaze up into his luminous blue-grey eyes, so much more clear and bright now than they were in his youth, “but I’m really happy we got this second chance to be together.”

“Me, too,” Kurt agrees, his hand hovering above Sebastian’s hair, “even if the circumstances aren’t necessarily ideal.”

“So, do you have an answer to the question, or do you default?” Sebastian says with an evil sneer.

“The answer is ten,” Kurt says, jutting his nose in the air in a haughty manner. “Ten men on a standard league lacrosse team.”

“You cheated!” Sebastian whined. “You read my mind or something!”

“You know I can’t do that,” Kurt snickers.

“Then how do you know the answer to that question?” Sebastian demands.

Kurt can’t look down to meet Sebastian’s eyes, his cheeks starting to tinge pink.

“I…may have gone to one of your games…or two… without Blaine…”

Sebastian’s eyes widen at Kurt’s confession. He rises to his knees, growling low in his throat, his eyes going dark and his grin turning hungry. “Maybe we should take this game to the bedroom and you can tell me more about these games you came to, if you get my drift.”

Kurt takes Sebastian’s hand and stands, enjoying the tingling sensation Sebastian’s skin sends shooting through Kurt’s arm, the memory of it stronger than the reality.

“You know to tell you the truth, before I realized it was you moving in here I was kind of pissed that I didn’t scare the shit out of you and send you running.” Kurt shrugs. “I guess I make kind of a sub-par ghost.”

“Don’t be too hard on yourself, babe,” Sebastian says, planting a kiss on Kurt’s cold cheek, “this is one of the few luxury apartments in New York that’s still rent controlled. Not even Satan himself could get me to move.”


	89. Too Hot for Sleeping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kurt and Sebastian are asleep in the loft when an unforeseen event forces them out on the fire escape. Futurefic, AU, smut. Warnings for rutting, light exhibitionism and shared somnophilia kink.

“Seb…” Kurt groans, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand which does nothing since his skin is already inundated with sweat, “Seb, hand me the sunscreen, babe.”

“What?” a tired, hoarse voice mutters beside him.

“The sunscreen…” Kurt mumbles.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Sebastian blinks heavy eyelids, trying to figure out what Kurt wants, but sweat from his brow drips down into his eyes and the vision he fought to gain blurs again. All Sebastian knows is it’s hot and it’s dark and for some reason Kurt is bitching about sunscreen.

“Did you forget the sunscreen again?” Kurt feels around with his hand, brushing Sebastian’s leg as he gropes for the bottle that he’s sure must be somewhere between them. “I’m going to burn like no one’s business if I get any more sun.”

“Kurt…” Sebastian reaches out a hand to shake his sleeping boyfriend. “Kurt...Kurt…Kurt!”

When gentle shaking doesn’t do the trick, Sebastian smacks Kurt on the arm.

“Ow! Bas!” Kurt complains, sitting straight up, blinking his eyes and focusing into the darkness of their bedroom. Kurt sweeps his eyes over the room, pitch black even for the night, confused as to why he thought they were at the beach. He sits still for a moment to get his mental bearings and figures out why. It’s hot; miserably hot and humid, making it hard for him to breath. Sweat rolls all over his body, down his arms, his neck, and his back. He can even feel it meandering over his scalp through the strands of his hair. The sheets beneath him are drenched with sweat and Kurt cringes.

“Gross,” he whines. “What the fuck happened to the a/c?”

Sebastian sits up beside Kurt, wiping the sweat from his eyes with the hem of his t-shirt, and examines the uncharacteristically extreme darkness of the loft.

“I think there’s been a brown out,” Sebastian says. “The alarm clock’s out, the lamp in the living room…” Sebastian steps out of bed and walks to the window, putting his hand over his eyes to look out into the street. “Street light’s are on, but I don’t see any lights in the windows.

“Ugh! Who knows when they’re going to get the electricity back on? I can’t sleep in this heat!” Kurt flops back down on the sweaty sheets, hearing them squelch beneath him, and his jaw drops in disgust. “Yuck!”

Sebastian turns slowly, looking around the loft, sleepy eyes scanning the space while he thinks of a solution.

“Come on, princess,” he says, rushing into the living room and attacking their futon. Kurt can’t see him clearly, but he can hear the rustling of the mattress being moved.

“Bas…” Kurt grouses, getting up from the bed, his pajamas uncomfortably moist, his limbs weighed down by exhaustion and the intense heat that only seems to get worse when he moves. “The living room isn’t going to be any cooler than the bedroom.”

“We’re not sleeping in the living room.” Sebastian opens the window that leads to the fire escape and starts shoving the futon mattress out onto the enclosed metal ledge.

Kurt watches him, brow knit in confusion as Sebastian pushes the last few inches of the mattress outside and claps his hands together in triumph. He turns to see Kurt standing a few feet behind him, swaying on his feet, stunned.

“Don’t just stand there,” Sebastian scolds. “Go get the pillows and a blanket.” Without another word, Sebastian climbs out the window. Kurt shakes his head, torn by Sebastian’s solution. He’s not too keen on sleeping outside. The words ‘Kurt’ and ‘the outdoors’ are not often used in the same sentence together. Then again, the idea of melting in an overheated apartment isn’t winning any awards either. With a long, defeated sigh, Kurt gathers up the pillows and blankets from their sweat-soaked bed and drags them to the window, feeding them out to a waiting Sebastian.

“Could you go any slower, Kurt?” Sebastian asks. “I have to be at school in three hours.”

“Fuck you, Bas,” Kurt yawns, struggling to climb out the window.

“Kinky,” Sebastian says with a smile, offering Kurt a hand when his lounge pants catch on the raised head of a nail head embedded in the window sill.

“Let’s just get back to sleep,” Kurt grumbles, climbing beneath the blanket and sighing when a cool breeze swirls around them, sending a delightful and welcome chill shooting across his skin. Kurt closes his eyes and waits for Sebastian to settle down beside him. He feels Sebastian’s body slide beneath the blanket, but after that he shifts around endlessly, bumping Kurt with his elbow and kicking him with his heel.

“Hey, weren’t you the one bitching about needing to get up in a few hours?” Kurt reaches out a hand to slap whatever part of Sebastian he can find. His fingers come in contact with smooth, bare skin, and Kurt’s eyes immediately shoot open.

“What are you doing?”

“Trying to get comfortable,” Sebastian says innocently. “My clothes were strangling me.”

Sebastian smirks at Kurt’s shocked expression.

“Oh, don’t be such a prude,” Sebastian says. “It’s not like anyone can see me.”

“Not that that would stop you,” Kurt retorts, shutting his eyes again and rolling onto his side.

Sebastian shimmies up behind him, wrapping an arm around Kurt’s waist and pulling him close, fitting their bodies together so Kurt can feel his half-hard cock push against his back.

Kurt scoffs and shakes his head.

“You know me,” Sebastian says without a hint of apology, “sleeping outside in the nude...definitely a turn-on.”

“Sebastian, breathing is a turn-on for you,” Kurt says.

“Come on, Kurt,” Sebastian whispers in that velvety voice that can pretty much persuade Kurt to do just about anything, “give it a shot. Live a little.”

Kurt sighs, smiling since he knows Sebastian can’t see him.

“You’re not going to let me sleep until I do it, are you?”

“Probably not,” Sebastian agrees, shamelessly kissing down Kurt’s neck.

Kurt weighs the pros and cons for a second longer, peeking around to see if any of the other buildings had a clear view of their fire escape.

“Fuck,” Kurt sighs. Sebastian leans away so Kurt can pull off his damp shirt and the pants clinging to his legs. He had to admit it felt better to be free of his oppressive clothes, but he isn’t about to let that piece of information slip. As soon as he’s free of his last piece of clothing Sebastian slips up behind him again, fitting his hard-on between Kurt’s ass cheeks, rutting slowly.

“Bas…” Kurt moans, slightly irritated. “I have to get to sleep!”

“Then go to sleep,” Sebastian murmurs into Kurt’s ear, still moving in long, languid thrusts up and down over Kurt’s hole. “I won’t wake you. I promise.”

Kurt rolls his eyes and readjusts his head on the pillow, not willing to divulge that this happens to be one of his favorite secret kinks, though he suspects that Sebastian already knows.

“Alright,” Kurt says dramatically, pushing his ass back against his boyfriend’s rutting cock and closing his eyes, letting the quiet pants of Sebastian’s breathing mix with the soothing sounds of the city to lull him to sleep, “just don’t get too loud or Mrs. Sponetti upstairs will call the cops on us again.”

 

 


	90. Your Heart Is My Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kurt is a being from another planet, learning all there is to learn about life on Earth...including love, when he unexpectedly falls for one of his test subjects and finds himself with a difficult decision to make - give up on home or give up on love. (Rated T)
> 
> One of my FF reviewers requested an alien one-shot, so here it is. I hope you like it :) Warning for mention of Blaine and Eli C.

Kurt looks over the sleek control panel of his ship, running his fingertips lightly along the pristine liquid display screens, admiring the fine details put into this masterpiece of engineering. Even at over six hundred years old, it’s still head and shoulders above and beyond what most Class M civilizations he’s visited have been able to come up with. An Imperial Star Cruiser – one of only three of its kind, and this one in particular the crowned jewel of the royal empress’s armada under his control…for at least a few minutes longer.

The whir of the warp engine.

The subtle _beep-beep…beep-beep_ of the life support system.

Kurt will miss them all, but in a way leaving it behind will be a relief. He is finally getting everything he truly wants. A life without hiding. A future of being and living, not just observing.

And love. He can’t forget love.

Kurt settles into his command chair and lets the supple material form to his body, cradling him in one of the more familiar comforts of this glorious ship, but he doesn’t want to delay and postpone his new life any longer. He turns to the communications console, his finger hovering over the green button that will hail the Imperial Ambassador for Terrestrial Relations.

Otherwise known as his boss, Sue.

He knows she’s waiting for him.

He takes a deep breath in, blows it out, and lets his finger fall.

“Kurt.”

Sue’s impatient voice responds immediately to his hail.

“Hey, Sue.” Kurt leans back farther in his chair, closing his eyes, preparing mentally for the conversation they’re about to have.

“So, agent, do you have a specimen for me?”

The voice coming in over the receiver is severe, apathetic. Kurt is used to hearing it, and even though he doesn’t have anything against Sue personally, he kind of hates her. He hates her constant façade of authority, hates her cut and dry attitude toward an entire race of thinking, feeling, sentient beings.

Hates that for so many years he has behaved like her; he shared her clinical opinion of the human race, referred to them as specimens, until recently when something unexpected and surprising changed his mind.

“Agent,” Sue says, sounding slightly irritated at his lack of response, “I asked you if specimen T.P. 247 is ready for transport?”

Kurt snickers at her use of the term ‘T.P.’ as it refers to ‘terrestrial planet’, but the minute he found out it was an Earth abbreviation for ‘toilet paper’ he couldn’t stop thinking about it every time she asked.

He clears his throat before he begins again.

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” Kurt stalls. He doesn’t like talking to Sue. In all of the hundreds of years he’s spent on this planet, he did his best to never call on her if he could help it, and now he has the worst reason to talk with her of all.

“Well, what is it?” Sue barks. “I haven’t got all the time in the universe to sit here and listen to you aspirate.”

“I don’t have a specimen for you,” Kurt says.

“Well, why the hell not?” Sue growls. “I thought you were pursuing one. I have about a thousand notes from you about the way he does his hair alone.”

Kurt blushes but stays tight lipped.

“The last specimen you sent me was fifty years ago,” she continues, her aggravation levels rising as she berates Kurt.

“Yes. They haven’t evolved physically since then, so I don’t see a reason to send you a new one.”

Before she has a chance to argue he rushes on.

“I have compiled a thorough report that encompasses their cultural development for the last hundred years. Technological advances, their launch into the so-called ‘information age’; their society is still centuries behind ours. They pose no threat, and if my projections are correct, they won’t be for close to another seven hundred and fifty thousand years. So, I’m recommending we close off this planet for further study until that time.”

Kurt hears Sue’s finger tapping against her desk.

“What are you saying, agent?”

Kurt folds his hands in his lap, giving himself moral support.

“I’m out, Sue,” Kurt says. “I’m not doing this anymore.”

The tapping stops.

“So, that’s it? You’re packing up shop and coming home?”

And here it was.

“I’m resigning my commission,” he says firmly, hoping to leave no room for debate. “I’m not coming home.”

He hears the sound of Sue’s sigh and knows he’s in for a long, uncomfortable conversation.

“Kurt, you’ve been on that puny planet for…”

“A lot longer than I’d care to admit, ambassador,” Kurt finishes, not so willing to own up to his advanced age.

“You’re a decorated officer. One of the highest paid in your rank. You have more honors and recommendations than…well, me, and you’re going to throw it all away?”

Kurt knew this was coming but it doesn’t make these points any easier to debate. Listening to her lay it all out sounds insane, even to him.

“It’s not a decision I made lightly,” Kurt says in his defense. “And it’s not as if I don’t have a reason. I do. I have a good reason.”

 _An amazing reason_ , he thinks with a smile.

Sue is silent for a second and Kurt tries to imagine the look on her face as his meaning sinks in entirely.

“You fell in love,” she accuses. “You fell in love with one of them, didn’t you?”

More silence.

“You fell in love with the specimen!” Her incredulous tone shoves him back like a slap in the face. “Now why would you go ahead and do something stupid like that? You’re one of the best officers I have. You’re cold and frigid…like me. You don’t have a heart.”

“Technically we have seven,” Kurt deadpans.

Sue groans with exasperation.

“You know what I mean.”

“I know.” Kurt shakes his head.

“Wait,” Sue says suddenly sounding thoroughly confused, “aren’t you heart bound to be joined to a man here? What was his name? _Blaire_?”

Kurt rolls his eyes.

“His name is Blaine, and Sue, we broke up over two hundred years ago.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. He’s married now to some guy named Eli, in the biodivergence department.”

Sue gasps.

“Isn’t that the guy that replaced you when you left?”

“Yup.” In more ways than one, apparently, not that he cared. His betrothed cheated and Kurt broke it off. Other than some bruised pride there was really no love lost there.

“How do I not remember this?” Sue mulls out loud. “Oh, that’s right. I don’t care.”

Kurt smirks. In her own way, she does care. She cares very much, which is why she launches into another lecture.

“How do you know your specimen will accept you?” Sue argues. “Have you been intimate with him?”

“He’s not a specimen,” Kurt says. “His name is Sebastian. And not that it’s any of your business but yes, we have been intimate.”

“In your true form?”

Kurt, in his natural form, is a sight of wonder and envy to behold. Humans would liken him to a lycanthrope – large and canine with eyes like diamonds and silky brown fur. Since his race of people have been observing the planet Earth since its infancy, one of his kind out late at night is probably where the legend of the werewolf began.

Thinking about the possibility makes him laugh, and has made him partial to human werewolf movies and t.v. shows en masse. _Teen Wolf_ currently holds the title as his favorite secret pleasure.

Now that the human race is more developed, Kurt and others of his kind take potions and tonics to alter their form. They have to be taken daily since their bodies change and adapt quickly.

“No, I have not,” Kurt affirms, “because then there would be no way you’d let him alone. He’d have to leave.”

“Damn,” Sue mutters. “I was sure I had you there.” Kurt hears Sue curse under her breath and he knows she’s almost out of arguments, but the hardest ones to hear she’s left for the end; the ones he himself has thought to death until he almost became numb to them…almost.

“Once you’re gone, you can’t come back,” she presses. “After 24 hours of drinking their water and breathing their air, your body will start to change, to adapt, and you’ll turn into one of them.”

“I know.”

“Your longevity will be gone, Kurt.” She clears her throat to cover the choked sound she wasn’t quick enough to hide.

“I know.”

“Well, what about your dad? Your stepmom? All your friends? You have people back home who love you, though the heavens only know why.”

“I’ve spoken to them already,” Kurt says, biting his tongue to keep from crying. “They understand. We’ve said our goodbyes.”

Sue is silent again, but not for too long.

“So, there’s nothing I can say to change your mind?” she asks finally. “I can’t up your pay or raise your commission? Possibly send you a more advanced ship.”

Kurt smiles at her attempts at bribery.

“My mind’s made up.”

Kurt hears the moment when Sue realizes she’s lost, and her persona changes, switching back to the hard-hearted commander he’s a touch more comfortable with.

“You know the protocol,” Sue says somberly. “Set the ship to auto pilot and…”

“It’ll return on its own, I know.” Kurt stares at the screen and sighs. “It’s been an honor serving for you, Sue.”

“I don’t know how you can honestly say that, Kurt,” she says with a sad laugh, “but thank you. It’s been an honor having you in my service.” Sue sniffles, a muffled sound that Kurt might have missed if he wasn’t standing completely still. “Now, go. Go to your human lover and make a bunch of ugly, hairless babies.”

“We’re both men, Sue…” Kurt wipes a few stray tears from his eyes. “You know that’s not how it works down here.”

“Like I care,” she mumbles. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

***

As happy as he is with his decision, Kurt can’t bear to stay and watch his ship lift off and leave the Earth’s atmosphere, returning home without him. He switches the ship’s controls to autopilot, dialing in the coordinates and setting it for a thirty minute delay to give him time to get away.

It takes a while for Kurt to make it to Sebastian’s penthouse from the outskirts of the city where his ship had been kept, cloaked in invisibility in a barren field, but after decades of riding subways and buses he’s fine without his portable transporter. Kurt stands outside Sebastian’s door and waits a few tense moments longer, trying to decide what exactly he’s going to say.

_Sorry I said I was leaving and never coming back?_

_Sorry that I told you I didn’t really love you?_

_I was actually a space alien trying to collect you as a specimen for an intergalactic zoo?_

In the end, he doesn’t have to say a word. The door opens and Sebastian, preparing to go out for the evening, stops short at the sight of his ex-boyfriend darkening his doorway.

A small, excited smile creeps onto Sebastian’s face but for only a second when he squashes it with a bitter smirk.

“You came back.”

“Yeah,” Kurt says, his own smile more apologetic. “I did.”

“Do you think it’s that easy?” Sebastian scoffs. “It’s been twelve hours already. I’ve moved on, baby. In fact…” Sebastian holds up his car keys and his coat, “I’ve got a date.”

“No, you don’t,” Kurt says, pulling the coat from Sebastian’s arms and walking forward slowly, crowding Sebastian back into his apartment with the persistence glowing from behind his dark eyes. “You’re going down to that bar on 54th, but just to drink me away.”

Sebastian sighs, stepping back unconsciously.

“I hate how you know me.”

“No, you don’t,” Kurt says, kicking the door shut behind him. “Actually, you kind of love it.”

Kurt tosses the coat to the couch and takes Sebastian in his arms, one snaking around his waist and the other smoothing up his back, his lips insistent and determined as he claims Sebastian’s mouth, kissing him possessively.

“So…are you staying this time?” Sebastian pants against Kurt’s mouth; Kurt has no intention of letting Sebastian get too far away.

“Yes, I am.”

“But…” Sebastian struggles between kisses; kisses that almost succeed in making Sebastian forget everything but the man in front of him, “I thought you said you had a job to return to.”

“I did,” Kurt agrees, reaching for the buttons to Sebastian’s shirt now that he’s sure Sebastian isn’t about to push him away, “but as it turns out my boss is an ass so I quit.”

“You only figured that out now?” Sebastian mumbles, craning his neck so Kurt can reach that spot below his ear that drives him wild.

“Actually, I’ve known that for decades,” he murmurs along the stretch of tan skin he’s trailing kisses along, “but I didn’t have a good enough reason to resign until now.”

Kurt feels Sebastian start to give in, his fingers fiddling with the belt to Kurt’s pants, undoing the leather strap.

 “You said you’d been away from home for a long time.”

Kurt tilts his head, kissing Sebastian one more time, steering him swiftly for the bedroom.

“As it turns out,” Kurt whispers, “home is where the heart is, and my heart is here with you.”


	91. Stretching Boundaries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sebastian decides to stretch Kurt's boundaries by having sex outdoors, and Kurt wants to try something new of his own.
> 
> This is Kurt and Sebastian from 'Special Delivery' but you don't need to read that story to appreciate this. Just a note for those of you who don't know - Kurt in that verse has suffered past physical and sexual abuse from a ex-boyfriend. Warning for extra light bondage, mention of outdoor sex, concerns about anxiety. Futurefic, romance, fluff.

The golden rays of the late afternoon sun warmed Kurt’s skin ever so slightly as Sebastian kissed down the length of his side. Kurt giggled when his boyfriend’s tongue swirled over the soft skin of his hipbone. He felt Sebastian’s smile against his skin when he did it again, coaxing another giggle from Kurt’s lips.

“Stop!” Kurt whined, wriggling to get away from Sebastian’s persistent mouth.

“I can’t help it, gorgeous,” Sebastian said, his voice rough and seductive, “I love hearing you laugh.” Sebastian ran his tongue beneath the waistband of Kurt’s skinny jeans, barely slipping through the tight space. Kurt arched his back and moaned, shutting his eyes to the light so he could absorb the feeling of Sebastian’s silky tongue against his skin.

“But I like that sound even better.”

Making love outdoors on a blanket tucked beneath the base of a hillside in view of the highway was Sebastian’s idea. He wanted to stretch Kurt’s boundaries; try something that felt a little taboo, even though in reality no one could see them unless they drove off the asphalt into the meadow and all the way to where the tree line began, several hundreds of feet away.

The neck-tie binding Kurt’s wrists was Kurt’s idea.

It was an experiment. Something he wanted to try, even though being tied up wasn’t something he was necessarily comfortable with, but he felt safe with Sebastian – safe beneath his mouth and in his arms. The strangest side effect of all, however, was how beautiful Kurt felt, how tremendously powerful. Sebastian moaned, humming with pleasure. He muttered a hundred ‘I love you’s and other words of affection against Kurt’s bare flesh.

Sebastian made sure Kurt wasn’t really tied down. The neck-tie was wound loosely around his wrists. If Kurt wanted to, he could unroll the silky material and he set himself free.

Still, when Kurt froze, Sebastian stopped and looked up at him, concerned that something he whispered or some way he kissed him triggered a memory, causing Kurt’s mind to shut down.

“Are you alright, gorgeous?”

“Yeah…yeah, I’m fine,” Kurt said, swallowing hard. “It’s just, I feel…”

“What?”

“I feel selfish,” Kurt admitted. “I mean, I’m basically doing nothing. I’m lying here while you go down on me.”

“Kurt…” Sebastian crawled up his boyfriend’s body to kiss him sweetly on the lips, “you’re doing everything. You’re giving me this gift, and I’m enjoying it.” Sebastian growled as he kissed Kurt again, a little harder this time. “God, am I enjoying it.”

Kurt laughed when the kiss changed to nips along his jawline.

“What is there to enjoy about it?”

“Well,” Sebastian grunted, sexually frustrated when he was forced to stop his downward momentum to have this conversation with his boyfriend, “the noises you make, for one.”

“Why?”

Sebastian laid his body carefully over Kurt’s so he could lick long lines up and down Kurt’s neck, chasing the shivers that followed each swipe of his tongue.

“Listening to you make those noises is transcendent,” Sebastian murmured, tracing lines and patterns over Kurt’s skin, signing his name over Kurt’s heart with the tip of his tongue. “It makes me think about the future.”

“Wh-what…what about the future?” Kurt panted, stretching out beneath his boyfriend, exposing every inch of skin that he could to Sebastian’s talented tongue.

“About you and me…” Sebastian sounded far more relaxed than Kurt, who squirmed, bucking up his hips, hoping Sebastian would get the hint. Sebastian did, and he blatantly ignored Kurt’s agony. “I think about the rest of our lives.”

“You think about that?” Kurt stared down at Sebastian, lazily flicking Kurt’s nipple, a smile growing on his lips.

“Of course,” Sebastian said. “I think about doing this to you every day until I turn up my toes and die.” Sebastian latched down over the sensitive nub he was teasing and suckled hard. Kurt struggled against the weight of Sebastian’s body but Sebastian had him effectively pinned. It didn’t bother him, though. It came with a feeling of security and comfort. It turned Kurt on to no end.

“Is that all you think about?” Kurt took a deep breath as soon as Sebastian’s mouth moved away from his skin.

“No.” Sebastian blew gently across Kurt’s chest, watching goose bumps bloom across his heated flesh. “I think about traveling the world with you…” Sebastian let his hands wander, starting at Kurt’s shoulders, his nails raking lightly down his chest. “…dream about every birthday I get to spend with you…every first I get to cross off my list with you…”

Sebastian climbed to his knees and straddled Kurt’s hips, running his nails up the underside of Kurt’s arms, meeting his eyes with his own darkening, emerald stare.

“I think about marrying you someday.”

Kurt watched Sebastian’s eyes, waiting for them to dart uncomfortably away after his admission, but they didn’t. Sebastian leaned in closer till they were nose to nose, rubbing the tip of his nose against Kurt’s.

“You want to marry me?” Kurt asked with a naïve sort of quiet awe.

“Pretty much every day since I met you,” Sebastian whispered against Kurt’s lips. “Even on those days when you were kind of a bitch.”

Kurt laughed, biting at Sebastian’s lower lip in retaliation.

“Do you want to marry me?”

Sebastian didn’t let Kurt answer right away, pausing to kiss him, brushing over his lips gently and then engulfing him in the heat of his desire.

“Is this your idea of a proposal?” Kurt sighed into his mouth.

“No,” Sebastian said quickly.

“Then, yes,” Kurt replied. “I do want to marry you.” Kurt’s eyes rolled up to where his wrists were still pseudo-tied together above his head. “Just not today.”

Sebastian followed Kurt’s eyes to his hands, wringing together in their binds.

“No,” Sebastian agreed. “Not today. Today is for carnal pleasure…” Sebastian crept down to Kurt’s fly, unbuttoning, and then unzipping, freeing his half-hard cock and smiling, eying the aching beauty before him hungrily. “And we haven’t even gotten started yet.”

 

 


	92. Dangerous Engagements

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Again combining two anon prompts - ‘Sebastian is hiding a secret from Kurt’ and killer!Sebastian (for the purposes of my story I made him a contract killer). Rated M for language, mention of outdoor sex, and killing (which includes a mention of blood, but nothing too graphic).

The oven timer goes off just as Kurt positions a piece of lavender fondant over the second tier of a five tiered maple walnut cake – Burt Hummel’s absolute favorite, but this version Kurt made with only egg whites to cut down on the cholesterol and applesauce instead of sugar. This way his father can indulge without going off his diet.

“Bas,” Kurt calls, carefully laying the fondant down on top of the cake, frowning when all that answers him is silence. “Sebastian! Can you come in here and help me please?”

Half a second later Kurt hears heavy footsteps clamoring down the staircase that leads from the upper level to the living room. Sebastian races in, already dressed for dinner in slate grey slacks and a white, button-down Brooks Brothers dress shirt. The door still swings on its hinges as he crosses the kitchen and grabs the pot holders from where they hang on the knob handle of one of the cabinets.

“Upper oven or lower oven?” he asks, dancing in front of the glass doors.

“Upper,” Kurt says, sighing with deep, spiritual satisfaction as the fondant drapes perfectly. “The pinwheels are ready.”

“You made pinwheels?” Sebastian gasps. “You know they’re my favorite.”

Sebastian slips the burgundy quilted pot holders on his hands and pulls the top oven door open. He breathes in as a wave of hot air sweeps over him, carrying with it the savory smell of filet mignon stuffed with feta cheese, sun-dried tomatoes, and spinach – a Kurt Hummel specialty. Kurt’s pinwheels were a linchpin in their relationship. They ended fights and mended fences. Kurt and Sebastian celebrate every birthday/anti-Valentine’s Day/Christmas/Arbor Day with them. These pinwheels are one of the reasons Sebastian fell in love with Kurt; not that Sebastian hadn’t been completely head-over-heels the moment he saw Kurt on that fated subway ride in Manhattan more than three years ago, but this dish – this delectable, mouthwatering dish – played a big part in winning Sebastian Smythe’s heart.

“Well, you said to pull out all the stops.” Kurt grabs a dish towel off the counter and wipes small beads of sweat off his forehead. He watches Sebastian balance the cookie sheet of pinwheels, looking left and right for a place to set them down. Kurt gestures to the burner covers on the stove top. “This has to be the most elaborate Friday night dinner we’ve ever planned.”

“Speaking of…” Sebastian sets the hot metal tray down gently, “I have to run out really quick. I forgot to pick up something.”

Kurt cocks his hip and tilts his head, crossing his arms across his chest.

“Sebastian!” he scolds. “Everyone’s going to be here in a little less than an hour, and I haven’t even gotten dressed yet.”

“You’ll pull it off. You’re a miracle worker,” Sebastian says. Kurt rolls his eyes and returns to his cake.

“Fine, but if I’m covered in fondant when everyone arrives, I’ll blame you.”

“Please do,” Sebastian drawls, coming up behind Kurt and kissing down his neck. “Then they won’t argue when I carry you away and nibble it all off.”

Kurt tries not to giggle, but he can’t help it, the image of Sebastian eating lavender-tinted fondant off of his naked body both erotic and hilarious, though hilarious is winning.

“Fine, fine,” Kurt says, waving a hand to dismiss his boyfriend before he starts sucking on his neck and leaving marks Kurt will never have enough time to cover up. “Just be quick about it.”

“Super quick,” Sebastian says, swatting Kurt on the ass as he backs away and heads out the door.

“And pick up another bottle of wine while you’re out,” Kurt calls after him.

“Red or white?” Sebastian yells back.

“Red!”

Kurt sighs, looking down the length of his kitchen counter piled high with half-decorated cookies, a pan of rising bread dough, and tray after tray of appetizers.

“Asshole,” he mutters under his breath, returning to his task with a grin growing hot on his face at the thought of what else he could get Sebastian to eat off his body.

***

Sebastian puts on his leather gloves as he rushes down Broadway, cutting through back alleys, keeping to the shadows to avoid being noticed. The sidewalks are packed with people; people too wrapped up in their own lives to ever notice another businessman in a long, black trench coat, walking among the crowd, keeping to himself. He keeps his coat collar popped up and his eyes lowered as he weaves in and out of the mobs waiting at every corner for the lights to change or huddled near the bus stop, gathered around the overhanging awning to avoid the light rain that’s started to fall.

The crowd starts to thin in the direction Sebastian’s going, and he smiles.

He creeps behind a corner, in a sheltered spot with a clear view of the store door.

He sticks close to the brick wall, and waits.

His mark is a jewelry store owner – a suspected terrorist sympathizer with possible links to Al Qaeda. Sebastian doesn’t know for sure. He didn’t ask questions. He’s not paid to know the details. Sebastian accepted the job immediately when he heard about it. He felt it was offered to him as an act of providence. It answered a crucial question; one that he had been mulling over for months now. This job gave him the perfect opportunity to get something that he needed.

Sebastian stands stock still, his eyes darting from the door, to the alley, to the street, and the buildings all around. He remains hyper-aware of his surroundings - the homeless man asleep in the alley across the way, the bodega owner on the corner sweeping his doorway, two kids riding bikes who seem way too young to be out so late. He hears the bells on the door jingle and he knows the time has come.

He counts in his head, ticking off the seconds, what’s left of his time here in the alley…

…what’s left of a stranger’s time on Earth.

Footsteps approach, unhurried, shuffling slightly on the pavement, stopping for a second when the shop owner checks his pockets for his keys and then starting again. Sebastian sees an arm swing forward and he pounces, locking onto the man’s elbow and securing a hand over his mouth before the startled man can even think to scream. Sebastian drags him kicking, stumbling, cursing down the alley till they’re far enough from the street to avoid being seen. Sebastian isn’t too concerned with the tenants of the apartments nearby. From what he could tell the shabby, decrepit buildings house immigrants, druggies, the elderly on fixed incomes - people who are rarely inclined to talk to the police.

Sebastian tosses the man up against the brick wall, trapping him in a space between two large dumpsters. The man blinks into the darkness and Sebastian waits for the man’s eyes to adjust and he can see his face clearly.

“Mr.…Mr. Anderson?” the man stutters in confusion. Sebastian smiles like the apex predator he is at the sound of his mark calling him by his pseudonym; actually the name of his nemesis in the game who Sebastian is more than certain calls himself Mr. Smythe when he contracts out. “Was…was their something else you n-needed?”

“Yes, actually,” Sebastian replies smoothly, opening his coat and pulling out his concealed Glock, taking a moment to fit a silencer onto the barrel. The man swallows hard as Sebastian stares at him, amused and menacing, twisting the silencer slowly until it threads completely.

“I…I don’t understand,” the man says, looking from the gun to Sebastian and back to the gun.

“There’s nothing to understand really,” Sebastian says. “I’m going to kill you. You’re going to die.”

The man steps back, stumbling into the wall behind him and his knees give way. He slides down to the ground, his entire body shuddering uncontrollably, fear welling in his dull, brown eyes.

“P-please,” the man whimpers. “I s-swear to God, I did nothing wrong.”

“I don’t know your God,” Sebastian says with a shake of his head, “but if I’m here then chances are you did something to deserve it.”

Sebastian aims his gun and the man makes a pitiful, choked off sound.

“I have money,” the man says, sniffling, bargaining with what little time he conceivably has left, “you can have it. All of it. Anything you want, I’ll give to you…”

The man cowering on the filthy cement, pleading for his life is cut short by a high, lilting melody coming from somewhere in the vicinity of Sebastian’s pants.

Both men freeze and stare awkwardly at each other. The tune continues, and then repeats, and in spite of literally looking death in the face, the shop owner chuckles.

“Is…is that from the musical _Wicked_?” the man sputters nervously.

“Shut the fuck up, asshole,” Sebastian snaps, reaching into his pocket with his free hand to find his phone. “That’s my boyfriend’s ringtone. It happens to be his favorite song.”

Sebastian’s eyes flick to the screen of his phone, noticing the man on the ground out of the corner of his eye making moves to run. Sebastian waves his weapon in the man’s face and points it at his head.

“Don’t get any ideas, fuck face,” Sebastian warns, glancing back quickly at the screen.

_From: Kurt_

_You’re the one that invited everyone we know in the world over here and now you’re late! Where the hell are you? Don’t forget the wine._

“I won’t forget the wine,” Sebastian grumbles, shoving his phone back in his pocket. The shop owner sees an opportunity, a window, using this moment of distraction to rush Sebastian, grabbing for his gun. Sebastian anticipates it. He knew the man would. They always do. Without flinching Sebastian fires, putting a bullet neatly through the man’s skull, right between his eyes, but instead of falling straight back, the man spins oddly, teetering on his heels and then lurches forward on twisted ankles, landing on Sebastian, covering his neck and shirt in blood as he slides down Sebastian’s body.

“Ugh!” Sebastian groans, stepping quickly out of the path of the dead man dropping to the cement. “Damn it!” Sebastian looks down at his shirt, and the spatters and smudges of blood trailing down to his slacks. “Shit, shit, shit!” Sebastian kicks at the dead man’s shoulder in frustration. “How the fuck am I supposed to cover this up?” he mutters to the corpse, as if the man will suddenly awake and start brainstorming some options.

“Fuck fuck fuck,” Sebastian chants angrily as he struggles with the body, lifting it into the dumpster to the left with a final grunt of effort and tossing it inside. He’s not worried about the bullet lodged in the dead man’s skull. He knows the police will dig it out and trace it, and when they do they’ll find it belongs to a Glock 23, just like his, owned by Clarissa Mildred Porter of West Fargo, North Dakota, an 89 year-old-lady who passed away three years ago and whose personal protection weapon was never recovered after her death.

Not that Sebastian killed her.

No women or children – that’s a rule he lives by.

Diabetes and a long standing love of cigarettes and bacon killed her. He just ended up with her gun.

Sebastian doesn’t leave the neighborhood the way he came. He still sticks to the shadows, but now he has to jump a few fences and cut through a couple of sketchy looking back yards to make his way back to Kurt’s house in the East Village unseen.

Sebastian loves Kurt’s little house. It’s more of a cottage, with vines trailing up the aging brick and its enclosed patio shrouded by the overhanging branches of a few large trees, completely obscured from the sidewalk not fifteen feet away. Sebastian can’t even count the amount of times they’ve fucked beneath those trees, in broad daylight with parents taking their kids to the daycare down the street and college kids rushing by on their way to NYU. Sebastian loves how turned on Kurt gets by the idea of doing something so forbidden and taboo. The house is nestled in a fairly exclusive neighborhood. Kurt swore once that he saw Michelle Williams walk by with her daughter Matilda, and even though both men agree that they love her work in _Brokeback Mountain_ , they were far too eager to get started on round two to throw on their clothes and find out.

Sebastian looks down at his ruined clothes and curses. How is he going to explain this to Kurt?

Sebastian creeps toward the back door cautiously, eying the sidewalk and the front of the house, looking for signs that any of their friends saw him approach from the side street and are running out to meet him. He opens the door and peers into the kitchen. The sounds of loud talking and boisterous laughter coming from the living room tell him that everyone they invited over for dinner tonight showed up; there’s no way he’ll be able to sneak past them without being seen. He opts for the stairs in the back of the house that lead up to the second floor balcony. They’re vintage - cast iron and in need of some repair so they’re going to squeak like a motherfucker, but hopefully everyone is too distracted with catching up and Kurt’s delicious cooking to notice. He backs away, heading out of the kitchen on his way toward the door as Kurt bustles in from the living room carrying an empty tray.

“Oh, great, Sebastian!” Kurt gushes, putting down the tray on the nearest empty surface and rushing forward to greet his boyfriend. “You’re back! I…”

Kurt stops dead, coming to a halt so suddenly that he trips over his own feet at the sight in front of him; Sebastian – his clothes, his skin, his disheveled hair – spattered in blood.

“I…I…” Kurt slowly raises a hand to his mouth, his jaw dropped, his eyes widening in horror.

“Kurt…” Sebastian raises his hands, inching forward slowly, preparing for the chance that Kurt might run off, “I can explain.”

“You’re…you’re covered in bl-blood,” Kurt stutters, eyes raking over him from head to toe while in his mind he searches for the right words to express his feelings, his confusion, his anger. “You…you…you’re a fucking idiot, Bas!” Kurt advances on Sebastian, icy blue eyes threatening to slice him apart. “You knew we were going to have a house full of people tonight! Why did you have to go and take a job tonight?”

Kurt glares at Sebastian’s soiled clothes and the smears of blood around his collar, staining his neck. He recoils with a disgusted grimace and a disapproving shake of his head.

“For Christ’s sake!” Kurt laments in a harsh whisper. “Did you hit him over the head with a sledgehammer?”

Sebastian opens up his coat and lets Kurt see the Glock in his holster. Kurt tuts, taking his dish towel and wrapping it around Sebastian’s gun, shoving it in the trash can concealed beneath the sink for the time being.

Kurt gives Sebastian another once over, Sebastian’s face fighting to look repentant but darkening with lust at the way Kurt fusses over him. Kurt throws his hands up in exasperation.

“And you forgot the wine.”

Sebastian snickers, biting his lip, leaning in to kiss Kurt’s neck, seeking out that spot that makes Kurt forgive everything.

“But I promise I brought home something better.”

Sebastian’s lips barely brush Kurt’s skin when a hand to his chest stops him.

“Not now,” Kurt smirks. “We don’t have time. Go upstairs. I’ll cover for you.” Kurt blows Sebastian a kiss by his right ear.

“What about my clothes?” Sebastian asks, watching as Kurt does a last second tidy in the kitchen, stopping first to wash the traces of blood off his hands.

“They’re ruined,” Kurt says definitely. “I don’t have enough pre-treater in the world to get all that out. We’ll stick them in the incinerator and get you a new outfit tomorrow.”

“Really?” Sebastian asks, blown away even after all these years at how nonplussed Kurt can behave under pressure.

“Of course.” Kurt turns at the kitchen door and gives Sebastian a wink. “You look fucking hot in it.” Kurt pushes through and returns to the gathering with not a single chestnut-colored hair out of place.

 _Oh yeah_ , Sebastian thinks, a smug smile on his face as he walks out the door and hurries up the metal stairs, patting his pants pocket and the tiny ring box it holds, chomping at the bit for later tonight when Sebastian gets the chance to give it to Kurt. _I am definitely marrying that man._


	93. Blind Date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is short and fluffy. Another take on the prompt ‘Hunter sets Sebastian up on a blind date with Kurt’. Futurefic, romance, fluff, mild angst.

“This is the stupidest ass date I’ve ever been on!” Sebastian tosses his napkin in his lap and leans back into the high-backed chair. He grabs his cane under the table and taps it; an unfortunate nervous tick he developed after the accident that took away his sight. “No offense, but come on. He knew, didn’t he? Hunter fucking knew.” Sebastian sits up again, his constant nervous fidgeting making Kurt’s heart hurt a little for him. He knows what it's like to feel lost and out of his depth. Hell, he feels that way now.

“You know what?” Sebastian rails on, his voice raising in volume as if there isn’t a restaurant full of people around them to hear, “Hunter’s not even really my friend.” Sebastian shakes his head vigorously, adding emphasis to his point. “Nope, he’s just some ass I met in high school that I couldn’t get rid of. Like a rash. Like a parasite. Like a parasite that causes a rash. Do you know what I mean?”

Kurt nods even though he knows it will do no good. There’s nothing else he can really do.

“Shit!” Sebastian blows out a breath in frustration for the seventeenth time (Kurt knows because he’s been keeping track). “Fucking…are you still there? Tap on the table with your knife if you’re still there.”

Kurt sighs, picking up his knife and tapping it hard against the table.

Sebastian smirks.

“Good. Well, at least you didn’t run off and leave me.”

Kurt and Sebastian have one thing in common – a tragic accident took something precious from both of them.

A house fire took away Sebastian’s vision right after college.

A car accident stole Kurt’s mother away from him when he was only eight. From that day on, he stopped speaking and hasn’t said a word since.

Kurt met Hunter in the support group he attends twice a week, and he seemed like such a sweet man. Hunter hadn’t taken his turn to ‘share’ yet, so Kurt isn’t exactly sure why he goes, but he figured it was only a matter of time before he opened up. Why would Hunter deliberately set him up with a man who was blind? Kurt can’t even fathom a reason. The only thing Hunter had told Kurt was that a date with Sebastian might be just the thing for both of them.

Whatever that ‘thing’ is, Kurt has no idea.

“Look, I don’t see any need to continue this, do you?” Sebastian continues, slouching down in his seat and settling back again. “I don’t mean to be rude, but you not talking is kind of unnerving. I don’t think I can get used to this.”

Kurt’s gaze falls to his lap, and it’s almost as if Sebastian can hear the change in Kurt’s posture and mood.

“I’m sorry, Kurt. You’re probably a really great guy, but this is obviously a joke, right? But don’t worry, the next time I have lunch with Hunter I’ll beat the shit out of him with my cane. I promise.”

Kurt sputters, a sound that falls somewhere between a choke and a giggle. It’s not the most attractive sound, but Sebastian catches it and smiles.

“Well, at least I know you can laugh,” Sebastian says, his voice smooth, sounding instantly more at ease. “What else? Hunter said you were hot.”

Kurt ducks his head, biting his lip. Sebastian leans over the table, blank but beautiful green eyes staring in Kurt’s direction.

“Was he right?” Sebastian whispers with the hint of a grin shadowing his lips. “Are you hot?”

Kurt doesn’t know what to do. He’s not entirely sure how to answer Sebastian. He reaches out for Sebastian’s hand, the tips of his fingers brushing over his skin. Sebastian breathes in quickly at the unexpected touch. Kurt slides his fingertips down the length of Sebastian’s long fingers, pads skimming past the callouses from where Sebastian grips his cane, until their hands come together at last, palm to palm. Kurt pulls Sebastian’s hand up to rest on his shoulder, and then Kurt shrugs.

Sebastian pauses a moment, trying to understand what Kurt wants to tell him.

“Oh, you don’t know?” Sebastian asks. “You don’t know if you’re hot?”

Kurt takes Sebastian’s hand again, intent on pressing it against his cheek except that he’s blushing like mad, and he knows Sebastian will feel the heat on his skin.

“I’m waiting.” Sebastian’s grin takes the full form of a playfully twisted smirk, and Kurt decides to give in, rushing forward into the cup of Sebastian’s hand with his cheek resting against his palm.

Kurt shakes his head.

No, he’s not hot. Never has been, or at least, never thought he was.

“No, huh,” Sebastian mutters, trailing his fingers slowly up Kurt’s cheek, fingers traveling up to his forehead, outlining his brow, tracing a line down Kurt’s nose, then carefully sliding along the contours of his mouth. Kurt watches Sebastian’s face, holding his breath, waiting for Sebastian to finish.

“Well,” Sebastian says finally, putting a finger beneath Kurt’s chin, “it seems that Hunter lives to be an asshole another day.”

Kurt rolls his eyes but he can’t stop the smile that’s curling his lips and taking up his entire face.

“So, hot stuff, what do you say we get out of here? Maybe, go somewhere a little more quiet for a drink?”

Kurt smiles, taking the hand still hovering beneath his chin and lifting it to his mouth. Kurt lets Sebastian feel the smile on his face, lets it brand into his skin before placing a small kiss to the back of his hand.

Sebastian hums quietly.

“Nice, Hummel,” he comments when Kurt plucks up enough daring for another kiss. “Now this I can get used to.”

 

 


	94. Secret Affair

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this for Project: NAGERTUTWP originally for the prompt Secret/Quiet. Rated NC17. This is a NIFF/Kurtbastian one-shot. Warnings for underage. 970+ words

Only a few of their really good friends knew – Kurt, Sebastian, Trent and Wes, but not too many more. If someone had a suspicion and watched them very carefully, they might catch something, like the way Jeff linked Nick’s pinkie as they passed each other in the hallway between classes, or how on Thursdays Nick paid for Jeff’s slice of pepperoni pizza in the commons. Sometimes there was the subtle pass of notes in Warbler practice, or how Jeff ran to defend Nick during lacrosse in gym because it wasn’t really Nick’s best sport.

The janitor never heard them going at it in the basement after classes let out since he wore huge headphones blasting music from a Walkman that should have been retired during the early nineties.

Nick was often surprised how no one had caught on to their secret affair, especially since Jeff had quite the exhibitionist side. He figured there were only so many times they could volunteer to clean the blackboard in the math classroom before lunch on Wednesdays before a teacher or student walked in on them fucking on the professor’s desk seeing as there was no lock on the door.

“Oh God,” Nick moaned as Jeff pressed him further onto the desk, “I can’t believe we’re doing this.”

“Mmm, you say that every week,” Jeff said, climbing over Nick’s body. Jeff unbuttoned his own blazer and tossed it onto a nearby chair.

“Well, every week I still can’t believe it,” Nick commented, pulling Jeff down on top of him. “Someday we’re going to get…”

Jeff cut Nick off with a hard, urgent kiss, working quickly on the button to Nick’s pants.

“Do you want me to blow you, Nicky?” Jeff asked, maneuvering his hand inside Nick’s pants and wrapping his fingers around Nick’s painfully hard cock.

“No, no, we don’t have time,” Nick said, fumbling to undo the button to Jeff’s pants, longing to have his hand around him. “I heard Mr. Druberg say he was coming back early to grade papers.”

“Don’t worry then.” Jeff pulled down Nick’s pants and his boxer briefs to just below the curve of his ass. “I’ve got this.”

***

“I don’t know why you even take your book to class if you’re just going to leave it there,” Kurt admonished Sebastian as they hurried down the hallway.

“Like I care," Sebastian bit back. "You're the one having kittens about it. Let’s just hurry up and get it so we can go back to the commons and…”

Kurt and Sebastian stopped outside of the classroom door, halted by the sound of low moans and the shuffling of a desk scraping back and forth on the tile floor. Sebastian put a hand to Kurt’s chest to stop him and peeked in through the crack of the partially open door.

“Is that…” Kurt whispered, trying to peek over Sebastian’s shoulder to get a better look.

“It’s Nick and Jeff again,” Sebastian answered, eyes glued to the two boys violating the teacher’s long, wooden desk. Jeff stood at the edge with Nick pulled up against him, both of their cocks in his hands, stroking quickly as a string of obscenities tumbled from his lips. Nick bit down hard on his fist shoved in his mouth, silencing his own moans of pleasure.

Kurt, tired of having his view blocked, pushed in front of Sebastian.

“Holy cheesus!” Kurt muttered, watching Nick writhe on the desk, grabbing at the edge so hard Kurt thought it might break off in his hand.

Sebastian huffed, rolling his eyes.

“I don’t see why they always get to have all of the fun,” he mumbled angrily. He slipped an arm beneath Kurt’s blazer, deftly undid his belt, and shoved his hand into Kurt’s pants, palming aggressively over his boyfriend’s cock.

“Sebastian?” Kurt whispered harshly, sounding thoroughly scandalized but sucking a breath in to give Sebastian more space to move. “What are you doing?”

“What do you _think_ I’m doing?” Sebastian went a step further, slipping his fingers into Kurt’s underwear and grabbing his cock. “I’m looking for my keys.”

Sebastian barely spared a quick glance down the hallway before stroking Kurt in earnest, feeling his cock go from flaccid to fully hard in a breath. Kurt’s knees almost buckled. He pressed his body back against Sebastian, rubbing against him, whimpering like a wounded animal.

“Shh!” Sebastian commanded forcefully, eyes still locked on their two friends, rushing to completion.

“Come on, Nicky,” Jeff cooed playfully, “I can see your lip twitching. You gonna cum for me, baby?”

Kurt’s body went rigid at the sound of Jeff’s voice coaxing Nick along. Sebastianfelt the change, knew about Kurt’s penchant for dirty talk during sex, and prayed that Nick or Jeff said something else.

“Yes, Jeff,” Nick whined, his voice breathy and higher than normal. “Yes…I’m cumming, Jeff! I’m cumming!”

Sebastian knew it was the sound of desperation in Nick’s voice more than the image of both boys cumming that pushed Kurt over the edge. Kurt came over Sebastian’s fist with an uncontrollable shudder, then went boneless in Sebastian’s arms. Kurt fell back against his boyfriend, hand locked around the doorknob, inadvertently pulling the door shut with a loud crack.

Jeff’s head snapped up.

“What was that?” Nick asked nervously, pushing up from the desk and hopping off.

Jeff smiled.

“It’s just Kurt and Sebastian again,” he said, pulling a small packet of tissues from his pants pocket and helping clean Nick up.

“Geez,” Nick muttered. “Those guys should start paying us for the show.

Jeff laughed.

“I don’t mind,” he said, zippering up his own pants and straightening his shirt. “I think it’s kind of hot that they get off watching us. Besides…” He pulled Nick into a hug and kissed the shorter boy on the forehead. “…they’re so good at keeping our secret. I don’t have a problem keeping theirs.”


	95. Closer to Heaven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So I got a prompt on FF yesterday from a reviewer who wanted Sebastian coming home from a stressful day at work, holding Kurt, breathing him in, and cuddle time. So, this is short and sweet, but I hope it fits the bill :)
> 
> Futurefic, angst, hurt/comfort, established relationship, romance, language and nudity.

Sebastian trudged home after a long day at work, tight in every conceivable muscle, his eyes burning with fatigue, and the anthem of the day ringing loudly in his ears.

“Sebastian, I wanted those projections yesterday! Where the hell are they?”

“Sebastian, you have to present for new clients at nine, noon, and four. Plan on staying late.”

“Sebastian! You know you have pretty big shoes to fill now that your brother got his partnership at that firm across town, traitorous little wretch. I expect better from you.”

“Sebastian, if you’re just going to sit on your ass all day, can you at least _look_ like you’re getting something done?”

“If I hadn’t promised your mother…”

Sebastian deplored working for his father’s firm. It was one of the stipulations behind his parents paying for his education. When they had originally struck that bargain, Sebastian didn’t have any clue what he was getting himself into. He knew his dad was a hard ass, but he didn’t think it would be this bad.

A son shouldn’t come home from work every day hating his old man.

Even though he felt like a tragic loser, he was happy to be heading home to Kurt.

He needed his fiancé more than anything. He had left the office an hour and a half late and wound up missing his train, and then the connection as well. He texted Kurt when he finally got on board instead of calling him so that he didn’t end up whining like a bitch on a subway car full of strangers.

Sebastian made his way to the penthouse he and Kurt shared, feeling a little less hopeless than he had a few hours before.

Sebastian could hear Kurt singing the moment the elevator stopped on their floor, the door opening up to the living room of their penthouse. From the clanging of pots and pans, and the savory smell of a roast cooking lingering in the air, Sebastian knew Kurt was in the kitchen.

“Sebastian?” Kurt called, peeking his head out from behind the double-door oven. “Dinner will be ready in an hour if you want to…”

Sebastian didn’t say a word. He walked up to his fiancé, pulling the potholders off his hands and slipping the apron from around his waist.

“Sebastian?”

Sebastian took Kurt’s hand and walked him quietly through the living room to the sofa. He sat down on the plush, overstuffed cushions, kicked off his shoes, and yanked Kurt down into his lap.

“Sebastian?” Kurt chuckled nervously. “Are you okay?”

Sebastian leaned his head against Kurt’s shoulder and shook it sadly so Kurt could feel his answer.

Kurt nodded, settling further back into his arms and let Sebastian hold him. Sebastian slipped his hands beneath Kurt’s shirt to feel the warmth of his skin as he held him. He nuzzled his nose into the crook of Kurt’s neck and breathed in deep, catching the mixture of jasmine and orange from his body wash, the spicy peppercorn aroma of the rub he put on the meat, and something else sweet that started to weave its way into his consciousness.

“Did you make a chocolate cake?” Sebastian asked, his voice muffled by Kurt’s cashmere sweater.

“I did,” Kurt said. “It should be done before the roast if you want to start with dessert first. Something tells me it’s been a dessert first kind of day.”

Sebastian nodded in agreement.

“It was, but for right now, can we just stay here?” Sebastian asked. “Can I just hold you?”

“Sure,” Kurt said with a sigh. “For as long as you want.”

Sebastian continued to breathe Kurt in until his soothing scent replaced the oxygen in his lungs and he felt a little giddy.

“Can we do naked cuddling?” Sebastian asked, kissing Kurt’s neck.

“That bad, huh?” Kurt chuckled sympathetically.

“Yes,” Sebastian said, pouting like a wounded child.

“Alright,” Kurt said even though Sebastian had already started pulling Kurt’s sweater over his head. Kurt took over with his own tight jeans while Sebastian quickly tore off his business façade, tossing various pieces all over the living room much to Kurt’s dismay. Kurt bit his tongue in an effort not to say anything.

“Better?” Kurt asked when Sebastian folded his arms back around him and held him close.

“Much,” Sebastian said, sinking deeper into the sofa with his fiancé in his arms.

Sebastian squeezed his eyes tight trying not to scream.

Fuck work. Fuck mergers and acquisitions. Fuck ledgers and stocks. Most of all, fuck his dad. Sebastian’s dad loved money. It was like an obsession with the man. Why he had ever even agreed to have children was beyond Sebastian since, in reality, children are the largest drain on a man’s wallet in history (or so his dad so often said).

Sebastian loved money, too. It had served him well his entire life. I kept him on top of the game. It kept him secure.

But money doesn’t really get you any closer to heaven.

Sebastian let his face relax when he felt Kurt turn and kiss his cheek, a smile replacing the grimace that had almost taken up permanent residence on his lips.

Sure, money was great…but it was nothing compared to the heaven he held in his arms.

 

 


	96. The Man in the Vivienne Westwood Suit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is…well, I don’t know what this is, exactly. For the anon prompt ‘Sebastian wanting something he can’t have’. I don’t know. Bear with me…it might be the start of something, it might not. But give it a read.

“Crap!” Sebastian yells, tossing the glossy 8x10 over his shoulder and onto the floor, much to the despair of his assistant, Chandler, whose high-pitched whimper resonates in the office as the fidgety man races to collect the ruined photograph. “Crap, crap, crap, crap…oh wait…”

Chandler perks up. His eyes peek out from where he kneels beside Sebastian’s desk trying to pry the almost magnetic photo paper off the hardwood floor.

“I think this…this…is crap!”

Sebastian growls and another picture takes flight. After the seventh photo hits the ground, Chandler has started to hope that Sebastian will forget he is still there waiting while he tries to pick a photo for this month’s spread. Then maybe Chandler can crawl away unseen.

“Ergh! Who the fuck approved these proofs?” Sebastian roars, slamming his fist on his desk and collapsing dramatically into his leather ergonomic chair.

“Uh…I’m not sure, I…”

Sebastian throws his head back and closes his eyes.

“That means Hunter, right?”

Chandler squeaks out something that sounds like a yes.

Sebastian turns to his laptop, shoving a flash drive into the USB port and pulling up the rest of the shots from the shoot.

“You know, Chandler,” Sebastian starts as his eyes scan shot after shot of the exact same model in front of the exact same fountain with the exact same bored expression on his face, “when I became editor of this magazine a year ago, it wasn’t so I could have my meek-ass assistant sit on his heels while my asshole vice editor calls all the shots, forcing me to swoop in at the last minute and save everyone’s ass. I…hello…”

Sebastian pulls the laptop closer and enlarges the photo on the screen.

“Now that’s what I’m talking about,” Sebastian says with a satisfied albeit hungry grin. “Now _that_ man has a fine body, Jesus Holy Christ.” Sebastian squints at the picture. “Huh. I didn’t realize we were showcasing Vivienne Westwood in this issue.”

“Wh-what?” Chandler stutters. “We’re not…”

Sebastian spins the laptop around so Chandler can see the image on the screen of a man in a grey Vivienne Westwood suit, carrying the jacket in the crook of his arm set against a plum Burberry dress shirt and boots that looked like they could be Echo’s line of hand-painted crocodile skin.

Chandler swallows. He doesn’t want to break the news, not when his boss finally cheered up.

“He’s…he’s not one of our models.”

“What?” Sebastian flips the laptop back to take another look at the man in the photograph, perfectly posed mid-hop in almost just the position Sebastian had envisioned their center shot to be. He leans into the picture more closely, peering at the man’s posture, the haughty way he holds his head, his profile as he half-runs/half-walks in the direction of the subway, the way his pants hug his ass.

That ass.

Sebastian has a feeling he’s seen that ass before.

His mouth drops open, and then twists into a grin so devious it actually sends a shiver down Chandler’s spine.

“No…fucking…way,” Sebastian says, enlarging the image again to be sure. “Kurt Hummel.”

Chandler’s brow knits for a second, and then his whole face lights up.

“Oh my God!” Chandler chirps, bouncing up and down and clapping his hands in that annoying way that makes Sebastian want to throw a stapler at his head. “Kurt Hummel! I haven’t seen him since…”

“High school,” Sebastian fills in as if Chandler stole the thought straight out of his head. Sebastian looks up at his doe-eyed assistant staring off into space, no doubt dreaming of some romantic reunion. “Don’t get any ideas, Chandler,” Sebastian says, snapping his fingers to get his attention. Chandler startles, shaking from his stupor and glaring at his boss. Sebastian glares back, dark green eyes steeped in venom, and Chandler recoils.

“What ideas?” Chandler sulks.

“Oh, don’t give me that, Chandle-berry. I know what ideas,” Sebastian teases. “I can see the little fireworks going off over your head. Well, hands off, nitwit.”

“Well…maybe…hands off to you, Sebastian,” Chandler sputters defensively, sticking his nose in the air. “Kurt isn’t like one of your slutty models that you can sweet talk into blowing you under your desk. He’s special.”

“I know,” Sebastian says. He saves the image to his iPhone, and then pushes up off the desk, blowing past Chandler. Suddenly he stops, turns back to the pouting man, and takes his sharp chin between his thumb and forefinger. He stares menacingly into Chandler’s sky blue eyes. “That’s why he’s all mine.”

 


	97. For Worse or For Much, Much Worse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kurt wakes up in his hotel room and he’s not quite sure what happened the night before. (Rated M. Warning for mention of Klaine/Blaine/Eli, sex, drug and alcohol use.)

_“Oh holy hell…”_

He hears the words; feels them ricochet around the inside of his skull like a pinball on fire before he realizes that he’s the one talking.

“Oh holy hell…what the fuck…my brain feels like I’ve run it through a meat grinder.”

“Well, that’s what a Blow Job will do to you,” a somewhat familiar though vaguely unfamiliar voice grumbles from somewhere nearby.

In too much mortal agony to open his eyes, Kurt rolls his head on the mattress and glares as best he can with closed lids in the direction of the voice.

“Excuse me?” he growls, menacing but quiet so as not to wake the wasps that are rattling inside his head.

“A Blow Job shot?” the voice clarifies with a chuckle that sounds like a gun shot when it reaches Kurt’s ears. “Coffee liqueur, Irish Cream, and vodka. The vodka was optional but you said the more, the merrier.”

“A Blow Job will make you feel like your head’s about to explode?” Kurt groans, his eyes burning to the point of tears – hot, unwelcome, uncontrollable tears.

“No,” the voice replies. “But fifteen might.”

“Fifteen?” Kurt gasps, keeping his voice low once the wave of nausea churning on the horizon of his waking brain starts to build.

“Yeah, well,” the voice says, grunting with its body’s efforts to move, “that’s where I stopped counting.”

“That’s just great.” Kurt pries his eyes open slowly, so slowly that if he keeps it up at this rate he’ll have them open by next June.

Too bad it’s October.

“That’s fucking great. And by the way…” Kurt’s eyes open a bit wider, but shut immediately at the flood of white light burning his retinas. “Who the fuck are you?”

“Who the fuck am I?” the voice says, sounding less offended than Kurt would have expected. “I’m Sebastian. Sebastian Smythe.”

Kurt crinkles his face when the name doesn’t strike any bells.

“I’m the guy you were doing body shots off of last night.”

“You’re the go-go dancer.” Kurt gasps again, and this time he almost lurches forward and vomits from a mixture of the pounding in his skull which has traveled with lightning speed all throughout his body, and the shame of realizing how far gone he had to be to bring a go-go dancer back to his hotel room. “From the bachelor party.”

“Right-y oh, princess,” Sebastian says, shuffling around the room, doing what Kurt can only guess. The man could be robbing him blind for all he knew, since at the moment he _was_ blind. “Holy and shit.”

“What?” Kurt scrabbles to stand, but something akin to karmic hatred slams him back down to the bed. He did something debasing and stupid…really, REALLY monumentally stupid, and now he’s going to pay. Let Sebastian take everything he has, as long as the man leaves him with at least one kidney he’ll feel justly punished. He just wants this to end as quickly as possible so he can get back to his life.

 _There’s_ a mess he’s not looking forward to cleaning up.

“Now, I don’t want you to freak out,” Sebastian says, his voice laden with humor and a dash of sympathy, “but by the looks of this hotel room someone had a lot of fun last night, and it might have been us.”

That gets Kurt’s body moving. His eyes snap open, the light shocking his optical nerve so that all he sees is a big white blur. Every synapse in his body fires, and even though he feels like he’s swimming through caramel in a pool that reeks of stale beer and old vomit, he somehow leaps out of bed, standing on wobbly, uncooperative feet. An arm grabs him and holds him steady, for which Kurt is grateful, but realizing there’s only one person in the room and therefore only one person that arm can belong to, he almost immediately shrugs it away.

“Well, excuse me,” Sebastian snarls. Kurt should feel guilty for being such a jerk seeing as the man, go-go dancer or no, is only trying to help, but as his eyes focus on the room he’s in, he becomes completely numb. The floor is littered with condom wrappers and their used counterparts, alongside empty packets of lube, two drained champagne bottles, and a pair of fuzzy handcuffs.

Kurt should have been mortified…he would have been if it wasn’t for one other, tiny, slightly important thing.

That is to say, _person_.

“But…but I don’t understand,” Kurt mutters through the fog that has him trapped, keeping him from thinking too hard or too clearly about anything. “What happened to Blaine?”

“Blaine?” Sebastian repeats. “Who the hell is Blaine?”

“Blaine,” Kurt repeats, as if saying the name again will help jog Sebastian’s memory. When all he does is return an exaggerated dumbfounded stare, Kurt gets profoundly annoyed. “Blaine? My fiancé Blaine? The man I’m supposed to be marrying today?”

“Look, Lady Face, I get it,” Sebastian says, putting a finger to his pursed lips, attempting to shush Kurt. “You don’t have to shout. And I don’t remember a _Blaine_. Though there could have been. Who knows? I mean, I was about seventeen sheets to the wind myself. Fuck, I barely remember you.”

“Right,” Kurt consoles himself. “I mean, two people couldn’t possibly have gone through all those condoms alone.”

Sebastian nods though the smirk on his face hints that he might know better.

Blaine had asked Kurt to marry him on the staircase at Dalton over a year ago, so suffice it to say it had been a long engagement. After months and months of hinting and pestering by Blaine, making ridiculous references to biological clocks, and constantly whining about how, “Mercedes and Sam finally tied the knot, when are we?” Kurt finally set a date.

More like he bought them two tickets to Vegas to elope and invited anyone they knew who wanted to tag along. Blaine sent out a massive Facebook post and by the time they arrived at the airport, Sam, Artie, Noah, Jake, and Ryder were all there waiting for them. They checked in at their hotel and had an all-day impromptu bachelor party. It was fun, kind of like senior ditch day at McKinley, hitting the different attractions and seeing the shows, riding the Insanity and the X-Scream on top of the Stratosphere Hotel until he thought he was going to scream himself hoarse, all with the wedding looming over him like a dangling sword.

By the late afternoon he was lukewarm about the whole ordeal, and afraid he might be getting cold feet. He even hid out in a public restroom and called Carole for some good old-fashioned mother/son advice. She calmed him down in that soothing motherly way of hers that Kurt had fallen in love with almost instantly when they first met. When he got off the phone he had been fine, and ready to get started with his new life.

The cold feet returned, and by that evening, Kurt’s feet had gone positively frigid.

Their afternoon of frolic and fun ended at some gay strip club on what was apparently ‘Go-Go Boy Night’.

Kurt had spotted Sebastian the moment they walked in. He was tall, muscular, oiled up, and dancing in a cage.

The group of them danced and drank, though Kurt stuck to his signature Shirley Temples so Blaine could have his token beer. He was pretty sure Jake and Noah were taking ecstasy from the way they started touching everybody and everything around them. The Go-Go dancers were released from their cages to mingle with the crowd, and Kurt had begun to relax enough to consider enjoying himself.

Eli tipped the scales and sent Kurt into an alcoholic whirlwind, and not only the mention of him. That would have turned Kurt’s stomach, but he would have let it go and been fine. No. The motherfucker actually had the balls to show up. Kurt had always suspected that Eli still trolled Blaine’s Facebook account, either with or without Blaine’s knowledge. Kurt didn’t feel the need to check up on Blaine’s social media usage. Why should he since vows and promises had been made, and contracts from the Oprah website signed. Kurt should have had no reason not to trust his fiancé. With barely an introduction, Eli and Blaine moved to a booth to talk over ‘old times’ (though Kurt couldn’t imagine how what was touted as a meaningless one-night stand could be termed ‘old times’). This was roughly about the same time Kurt started binging. He remembered downing the first three shots with his hands clasped behind his back. After that, things got kind of hazy.

“What the fuck happened?” Kurt asks under his breath, not expecting an answer.

“Well, I think these can help fill in some of the holes,” Sebastian says, holding up a few yellow slips of paper that look like speeding tickets.

“What are those?” Kurt wraps his arms around his waist for support, knowing he’s most likely not going to like the answer.

“They look like citations from the police…” Sebastian holds them up one at a time as he explains. “This is for making too much noise. This is for public nudity. And this…” Sebastian smirks and nods his head, “is for punching the manager of the hotel. It looks like he decided not to press charges, though.”

“You punched the manager of the hotel?” Kurt says, his mouth agape.

“No, princess,” Sebastian chuckles, “you did. Your name is Kurt, right?”

“Oh holy hell.” Kurt grabs his hair in both hands and drops back down to the bed, two actions that should have been considered very carefully and then rejected before they were actually carried out because now more than ever he feels everything he’s ever eaten since the eighth grade fighting to be free of his stomach.

“Oops, here you go, soldier.” Sebastian rushes over with an empty waste bucket and puts it between Kurt’s legs. Kurt takes a few deep breaths but manages to quell the flood of vomit before it makes an appearance.

“Thanks,” Kurt says, looking up into the grass green eyes of the admittedly gorgeous man standing naked before him, which prompts another humiliating realization. Kurt looks down his body to check.

Yup. He’s naked.

“I’m amazed they didn’t kick us out,” Kurt says, eager to change the subject, at least in his own mind, of his current state of dress. The urge to vomit may be gone for the time being, but he feels bile rise to his mouth as he finally acknowledges that, yes, he and Sebastian were…intimate with each other.

Sebastian picks up another piece of paper, a print out, and laughs.

“It looks like they did.” He holds the print out up for Kurt to see. Kurt squints at it, but the print is too small to read, especially when the words insist on chasing each other like cats and mice all over the page.

“What does it say?”

“It looks like this is a bill from the Hilton,” Sebastian explains.

“So?” Kurt says. “That’s where we’re…where Blaine and I are booked.”

“But we’re at the Marriott.” Sebastian grabs a towel from off the back of a chair and tosses it to Kurt. Kurt lets it fall into his lap instead of making a move to catch it. He opens the towel up on his knees and there at the edge, embossed in large block letters, is the name ‘MARRIOTT’. Sebastian peers down at the page, reading the bill all the way to the end. “And in the notes at the bottom it says that we are, and I quote, _permanently banned from the Hilton family of hotels_.”

“Oh holy hell,” Kurt moans again, wondering how exactly one gets banned from a hotel. He scoffs. Evidently by being loud, nude, and punching the manager.

“Jesus Christ!” Sebastian exclaims. “The ban is international!”

Kurt doesn’t know what to do. He has to find Blaine. He has to make sure that he’s okay. He has to apologize.

He stops and backs up the moment the thought enters his head. Why should he apologize? This sure as hell didn’t start with him. It started with Blaine and his stupid decision to cheat. If Eli hadn’t shown up last night, Kurt wouldn’t have started doing shots, and then maybe, just maybe he’d be lying in bed with his fiancé preparing for his wedding instead of at the Marriott with a go-go dancer.

Kurt turns to the table by the bedside in search of his phone and eyes the clock.

1:45 p.m.

His wedding was at noon! He missed his wedding. Kurt clenches his teeth, running a hand through his hair, and feels something hard knock against his forehead. He pulls his hand out of the tangled mess and looks at his fingers splayed wide. A gold ring winks back at him, resting on his left ring finger as if it had always been there. Kurt spins it around on his finger, staring at it as if it is some frightening alien parasite, and grows even more confused.

“But, I got married.” Kurt looks around the room, his brow knitting together. Was there a chance that Blaine was in the room with them, passed out on the floor, in the bathroom perhaps? Kurt hadn’t moved more than two feet at the most, so that was still a possibility. Maybe they had met up later in the evening and gone to one of those drive-thru chapels. Maybe they had gotten married with Elvis as the officiant. For some reason he feels that his dad would greatly approve of that. Maybe they met back up with Sebastian and the three of them had celebrated?

“Uh, Kurt?” Sebastian says, breaking his concentration.

“What?” Kurt snaps. He’s trying to recall anything from the night before, and seeing as his mind only has enough capacity at the moment to process one thing at a time, he would rather not be disturbed. He turns his head toward the man who is now completely dressed – dark wash jeans hugging his legs; a long, grey designer t-shirt with some retro band design artfully faded on the front, and a pair of stylish Doc Martens which Kurt can appreciate because he owns about ten of the same pair in various different colors. Kurt looks the man over from head to toe and back again. Too bad he’s married. He wouldn’t mind a repeat performance of whatever happened last night at a time when he can actually remember it. Maybe when he finally finds where in the hotel room Blaine has stashed himself he’ll pluck up the courage to ask.

“Where did you get a change of clothes?”

Kurt doesn’t remember a lot about being at the club, but he is pretty sure Sebastian was wearing a pair of gold boy shorts and a mesh tank top.

“I had a change of clothes with me at the club,” Sebastian says with a shrug. “You don’t know fear until you walk the streets of Vegas after midnight in a pair of ‘fuck me’ shorts.”

Kurt nods lazily and Sebastian rolls his eyes.

“Look, this is getting really awkward, and I don’t do awkward, so I’m just going to go,” he says, bending over to tie up his shoes.

“Yeah, sure.” Kurt says. “Is there anything…anything else I owe you?” Kurt wants to drop dead the moment the words pass his lips. Sebastian smirks, but waves a hand.

“Nah, we’re straight,” he assures Kurt, heading straight for the door like he’s late for an appointment, which he might be since Kurt realizes he has no idea what else Sebastian does with his life. Sebastian stops at the door and glances one last time at Kurt, frowning at the lost and distraught look on his face. “For what it’s worth, I hope Prince Charming is here somewhere. If you see him, tell him I had an awesome time.”

“Thanks,” Kurt says with a humorless laugh, not looking up to meet Sebastian’s eyes. Sebastian walks out the door, closing it carefully shut behind him.

Kurt counts to ten and waits before he makes another attempt at getting up. When he pushes off the bed, he finds his limbs are stiff, but his head is much clearer. He walks into the bathroom, surveying the rooms as he passes through for any sign that Blaine’s been there. He examines the ring on his finger more closely. It’s gold – yellow gold. But if he remembers correctly (which he honestly doesn’t) he thought Blaine said the rings he picked out for them were titanium. Kurt turns on the cold water and splashes his face, shivering as drops fly over his shoulders and roll down his back. He soaks his face over and over until he’s replaced the pain in his head with the bite of ice-cold water on his skin. He turns off the faucet and reaches for a hand towel on the counter, but his hand comes in contact with another piece of paper. He squeegees his face with a swipe of his hand and looks at the paper more carefully. It appears to be another citation, folded in half and sitting on the counter top. Kurt reaches over and picks it up, not too eager to unfold it and find out what other damage they did at the Hilton. Peeing in the pool? Stripping in the lobby? Or worse, having sex in the elevator?

He sits down on the toilet to keep from falling over while he reads the yellow sheet of paper. It’s a receipt for a wedding license. Makes sense since Kurt was put in charge of getting one. Kurt reads down the page, looking away and blinking every few seconds as the print swims in his view. He desperately tries to latch on to the words and make sense out of them.

‘Mr. and Mr. Hummel.’

It’s supposed to read, ‘Mr. and Mr. Anderson-Hummel.’

Kurt looks the page over, trying to pinpoint Blaine’s name anywhere but he can’t. Another name leaps out at him and he swallows thickly, a new wave of nausea crashing down on him, threatening to drag him under, except this time he feels like he’s going to faint.

Mr. and Mr. Hummel.

Mr. Kurt Hummel and Mr. _Sebastian Smythe_ -Hummel.

 _Holy shit_ …


	98. My Life in Your Hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another one-shot for the anon prompt ‘killers’ (again I used contract killers for my purposes). Mention of Kadam. Warning for mention of bondage, toys, language, and minor violence. Futurefic, AU.

Kurt presses his body into the brick building behind him while he waits for the sound of footsteps, schooling his breathing, remaining motionless, becoming one with the wall. The first shuffle of footsteps approaches – light treads gripping the ground…Vans. Strike one. The second, jogging his way, giving him only seconds to make a determination – heavy, no real tread, a slight quick-slow, quick-slow gait. His mark didn’t have a limp. Strike two. Long minutes tick by, stretching into tens of minutes, half an hour. Time has no real meaning for Kurt. He lives his life from moment to moment; whether his mark shows up now or an hour from now is of no consequence to Kurt.

Kurt is a patient man.

The muffled click, click, click of a size 12 John Varvatos Oxford catches Kurt’s attention and he grins from ear to ear in anticipation of another stunning job well done. From what he knows of this puffed-up, pampered peacock, his job should be a cinch. Kurt has read his dossier over so many times he has the man’s deets memorized – Sebastian Smythe, CEO of RezCorp, a Fortune 500 pharmaceutical company, developing wonder-drugs to defeat a new age of super bugs. It sounded respectable on paper, but this man was no philanthropist. Private jet, private yacht, penthouse uptown…the kind of man who has never gotten his hands dirty in his life. He probably doesn’t even tie his own shoes, Kurt thinks, suppressing a chuckle. An hour, two at the most, then he’ll be back at his loft and balls deep in his ‘boyfriend of the month’. His current model is blond and British and doesn’t like to be kept waiting.

Kurt salivates at the thought of how he left Adam – handcuffed and shackled to his king-sized bed with a vibrating plug up his ass. He’ll be ready and raring the moment Kurt walks through the door.

The click, click, click of heels on pavement becomes progressively louder. Kurt holds his breath. He tries not to be too eager; he mentally walks through the specifics, not dwelling on the humongous payload in store for him once this job is done. All he needs is an arm, a sleeve, anything so that he can drag the man into the alley and snap his neck. It will be quick, simple, relatively painless…or so he’s heard.

He’s been in a lot of tight spaces, but luckily he’s never come close to having his neck broken.

In a way it’s a shame that Sebastian Smythe has to die. Kurt has looked at his picture so many times, memorizing the set of his jaw when he smiles (though it’s more like the grin of a jackal bearing down on a baby gazelle), the perfect slope of his nose (far too pretty to be natural), but it’s his eyes that Kurt always falls back on. His sea green, seductive, intelligent eyes; eyes that hide secrets, almost as many secrets as Kurt’s, he’d wager. Kurt keeps the worn and worried photograph in his jacket pocket. Sebastian might be a mark, but the man _is_ gorgeous, and in the only soft part left of his heart, he doesn’t want Sebastian to suffer.

The sound of footsteps stops and Kurt flattens himself further against the wall, slinking inch by inch to peek out into the alley and see what’s keeping his next paycheck…

…but the man in the $300 dress shoes has vanished.

 _Shit_ , Kurt curses to himself, annoyed that he let his own daydreaming get in the way of his work. _Shit, shit, shit!_

Kurt surveys the street, the sidewalk, the shop doors, the window of the pub across the way, trying to find a place where Sebastian might have ducked in. From his hiding place all he can see are a few kids on skateboards, some late-night commuters, and an elderly Chinese man walking a sick and scraggily looking mutt. Needing a better vantage point, he leaps up onto the fire escape, nimbly climbing the shaky metal frame, negotiating the rickety rungs and stepping soundlessly like a cat. He jumps up onto the ledge and his eyes sweep the roof, making sure he doesn’t have any unexpected company to deal with. Confident that he’s alone, he races from ledge to ledge, peering over the side down to the street below, trying to find the man himself, possibly coming out of one of the store fronts, or his black town car waiting by the curb or at the light, anything to get back on the trail of the man he had envision killing tonight.

He takes one more stab at his view of the street, cursing silently in his head, imaging with a wicked grin that poor Adam is going to have to sit tight a bit longer than planned. He heads back toward the fire escape, taking cursory peeks over the edge, reaching out with a steady hand for the U-shaped railing.

He feels the shift of the metal beneath his hand a second too late.

A fist wrapped in a leather glove shoots up from over the side and nails Kurt right on the nose.

He’s startled, starbursts igniting in front of his eyes and obscuring his vision. Kurt’s been hit before, and he for sure can take a hit, but this was different. The person behind that punch knew exactly how to incapacitate him. It’s not only the searing pain that stuns him. The pain he can ignore, but now he’s completely blind. He stumbles backward, trying to find his bearings, recalling the layout of the roof in his mind so he can figure out a place to hide. He hears a foot crunch into the loose gravel on the tar and swings out in that direction, hoping he might land a lucky punch.

Fingers wrap around both wrists and he’s shoved back, just as his vision begins to clear. They don’t travel far, and when Kurt comes to his senses enough to realize who has him trapped, he’s being bent backward over the body of a square exhaust vent.

“No way,” Kurt groans, struggling to force his attacker off him. “No fucking way!”

Kurt rears up with his legs and kicks out, a blow that would have connected right below the other man’s ribcage, but he dodges quickly, slamming down on Kurt’s nose again with the hard crown of his head.

“Fuck!” Kurt screeches, turning his head away and blinking madly to dissolve a new constellation of stars from his vision.

“Next time, I break it,” Kurt’s attacker snarls.

“This can’t be happening,” Kurt growls, “but what are you doing up here?”

“Same as you, princess.”

Kurt snaps his head angrily to face the smug grin and familiar green eyes glaring down at him.

“But you’re a…”

“Contract killer hired to assassinate you?” Sebastian finishes.

“I was going to say a capitalist pig,” Kurt snarls.

“And you, Mr. Hummel, are an up-and-coming clothing designer with your own successful line,” Sebastian offered, watching Kurt’s face grow pale. “High profile jobs are excellent covers for our line of work, are they not?”

“Perhaps…” Kurt pushes up against Sebastian’s grip but it only tightens. Sebastian presses down harder with the weight of his body to keep Kurt pinned. Kurt knows he’s up against the ropes, but he’s not yet willing to admit defeat.

“Look, princess,” Sebastian says with an air of frustration, “I know all about you and you know all about me, so let’s cut to the chase. I have a little proposition for you, a little you-scratch-my-back-and-I’ll-scratch-yours action.”

Kurt raises an eyebrow.

“I’m listening,” Kurt says, relaxing onto the exhaust pipe since he knows he’s probably not going anywhere, but still ready to pounce if the occasion warrants. He doesn’t like to be taken by surprise, and this night has been nothing but surprises so far.

“You know the people who want me dead, and I happen to know the people who want you dead. Since neither of us wants to be dead, I propose an exchange of services for mutual benefit.”

Kurt sighs.

“Are you always this long winded?” he asks. “I imagine meetings with you are boring as fuck.”

“I need a bodyguard,” Sebastian simplifies with an exaggerated eye roll. “And I have feeling that you do, too. You just didn’t know it till right now.”

Kurt opens his mouth to object, but Sebastian’s right. He hates to admit it, but he thought for certain he knew every hired gun pointed his way.

Sebastian came from too far out of left field for Kurt’s taste.

“And how would this work?” Kurt asks. He feels Sebastian’s grip on his wrists relax, wishing in a masochistic way that he would tighten them again.

“Well, I have a security detail at my work and my penthouse, whereas you seem to prefer to work and live where any gunman with a homemade silencer and a $20 sight could pick you off with relative ease.”

Kurt scoffs.

“I’d like to see you try it,” he says.

Sebastian leans down lower, his grin widening sadistically.

“I _did_ try it,” Sebastian reveals. “To make sure.”

Kurt swallows hard, his own self-assured smile dropping fast.

“So,” Sebastian continues, enjoying the way Kurt squirms uncomfortably beneath him, “you’ll move in with me for the time being. I have an empty room you can use as your studio, and in the meantime, we’re at each other’s disposal. You’ll watch my back on dinner dates and other outings that take me away from my base of operations, and in return I’ll go with you to your events.”

“And why would I…”

“If I’m not mistaken, isn’t Fashion Week coming up soon?” Sebastian says. Kurt concentrates on Sebastian’s mouth when he speaks, the way he wraps his lips around the words ever so enticing. “Lots of crowds, faceless guests with backstage access, poorly lit portable tents with dark corners...”

“What are you trying to say?” Kurt feels himself shiver for the first time in his adult life. Listening to Sebastian lay it out so plain, it seems so obvious. Why didn’t he see it before?

“What I’m saying is that the people who want you dead obviously thought this out a whole helluva lot better than you have.”

“Fuck,” Kurt exclaims, at a loss for anything else to say.

“Fuck is right, which reminds me…” Sebastian moves farther up between Kurt’s legs, purposefully rubbing alongside Kurt’s untimely erection with his own, “we didn’t talk about benefits.”

“What makes you think I would even be interested?” Kurt lies. It probably would have worked, too, if the object of his body’s lust wasn’t lying out over him, teasing him, reminding him of what’s waiting for him back home in his loft.

“Let’s say a little British birdy told me that I might be your type.”

_Adam._

_Fuck._

“Really, Kurt,” Sebastian continues when he sees the acknowledgement of betrayal on Kurt’s face, “you should be more selective about who you tie to your bed.”

“All right,” Kurt relents, “well, since it seems that I don’t have any other choices…”

“Oh, you have other choices…” Sebastian lifts a bit up off Kurt’s body, leaving him wanting, “it’s just that most of them end up with you in a box, and not necessarily dead while you’re in there.”

“I get it,” Kurt says, following the heat of Sebastian’s body as the other man stands. “So, where do we go from here?”

“My place,” Sebastian says, helping Kurt off the pipe with a hand on his upper arm. Kurt shrugs away and brushes himself off, eying Sebastian shrewdly, prepared for any sudden moves.

“How do I know that I can trust you?” Kurt asks, wincing at what has to be the most cliché thing he’s ever said.

Sebastian shrugs.

“You can’t,” he says, putting his hand back on Kurt’s arm, knowing it must annoy the ever-loving shit out of him, and drags him back to the fire escape, smacking him on the ass for good measure, “but won’t it be fun to find out?”


	99. The Prince's Stable Hand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set in the 1800s, Sebastian is a prince, betrothed to wed the Princess Quinn Fabray, but Sebastian has secret desires that his new wife will never be able to fulfill. This started out as just smut, and kind of turned into a love story. Go figure. Warnings for bondage, whipping, mention of injuries from whipping. Rated M. Dom/sub. Dom!Kurt, sub!Sebastian. Unrequited love.

**A/N:** _Stolen from this[Klaine tumblr prompt](http://babyblainers.tumblr.com/post/88404626359/i-need-need-need-a-fic-where-blaine-is-a-medieval) ;)_

Sebastian stood dutifully in the courtyard and watched Princess Fabray’s carriage pull away, the four white stallions at the lead trotting along the stone drive, the clacking of their hooves filling the air with their rhythmic cadence. A dainty, white gloved hand waved back at him from out the darkened window, a lace handkerchief clutched between pinched fingers, its owner shrouded by shadows. Sebastian didn’t need to see her to visualize her golden hair spilling down her shoulders, her lightly sun-kissed skin, her moss green eyes, her baby pink bodice laced so tightly around her petite frame that Sebastian feared she might actually have a broken rib or two.

He raised his own gloved hand and waved back, the smile plastered on his face growing less and less sincere as the carriage drove farther away toward the black iron gates that surrounded the grounds. Before the carriage reached them, Princess Fabray let go of the handkerchief, leaving it behind as a token for her betrothed. The light lace fabric billowed in the air, floating freely in the wake of the carriage as the team gained speed and bustled away. The evening breeze picked up and caught the handkerchief, swirling it through the air, and then settling it on the lush green grass.

“Would you like me to fetch that for you, Your Highness?” Hunter, the captain of the prince’s guard, asked with a sly smirk.

“I don’t give a fuck,” Sebastian muttered, turning angrily from the moonlit scene and storming away.

“Where are you going, Your Highness?” Hunter called after him, a thinly veiled taunt in his amused voice. The day spent guarding the awkward couple had been dreadfully dull and long for Hunter, but it was almost worth it to watch the prince forced to play nice for that vain and shallow fiancée of his. “What should I tell the king if he asks for you?”

Sebastian yanked off his white gloves and chucked them one by one over his shoulder.

“If he ever gets his dick out of the downstairs maid’s ass, you can tell him I’ll see him in hell,” Sebastian snapped back without stopping his stride.

Hunter shook his head, watching the noble Prince Sebastian stomp away like a spoiled child. Hunter knew he was pushing his luck, but he and Sebastian had been friends since birth. Both nursed by Hunter’s own mother, they were nearly brothers. Hunter knew Sebastian better than anyone in the kingdom, definitely better than the prince’s own parents, which was why, despite all the slightly cruel taunts, his heart broke for Sebastian. He saw the prince’s footsteps falter on the cobblestones as he made his way with purpose toward the stables.

Sometimes the worst curse in the world could be the circumstances of birth.

Sebastian didn’t choose who he was or the way he loved, but the fact of the matter was that Sebastian was born a prince. He had duties and responsibilities. He needed to be a role model; a shining example to his kingdom. Those responsibilities included marrying well…and producing an heir.

Hunter turned to the rest of the compliment, who watched their prince with interest, the image most assuredly feeding rumors that would circulate like wildfire later in the drunken revelry of the evening. One or two guards even wore the shadows of knowing grins on their faces. Hunter scowled, and the grins beat a hasty retreat.

“None of you know where the prince is headed, do you?” Hunter bellowed to the stoic guards. When no one answered, Hunter repeated loudly, “Do you!?”

“No, sir,” they answered in unison.

“Good,” Hunter said, knowing in his heart that keeping them quiet through fear only worked for so long. “Keep your mouths shut and you might not be working in the kitchens come morning.”

***

Sebastian concentrated on the click of his footsteps on the stones to scrub his mind clean of Quinn Fabray - his intended - and her inane chatter. She talked all day long about everything and nothing, rarely giving Sebastian’s ears a rest.

“Oh, Your Highness,” she blathered over breakfast, “what an amazing library you have in the palace. I’m sure I’ll never tire of reading while I’m here. It’s my one true passion.”

“Did I tell you, Prince Sebastian,” she jabbered on during their walk in the garden after lunch, “about the most marvelous idea I had for a tabletop that I would love to paint for my sitting room?”

“Does the prince enjoy theater?” she chittered as they took a carriage ride over the grounds. “Oh, I do love the theater. The costumes, the singing, especially the love stories…”

She sat close by his side and put a bold hand on his knee.

Then she proceeded to sing from her favorite score. She sang and she quipped and she barely drew a breath; so many times he wished he could scream, “Do shut the fuck up!” Sebastian wasn’t ashamed of his obvious indifference toward the girl. He had no intention of leading her on. He was sure that he had made it quite clear on several occasions that this ‘marriage’ was one of no consequence to him. He wasn’t marrying for love.

Sebastian made it to the stables, pleased as always to see the windows glowing with lamplight from within, so much warmer and more inviting than any single room in the whole of his palace. He had already undone the buttons to his coat, almost tearing a few in his haste to be rid of the damned thing. It was tight around his chest and restricted his breathing; just another cage that being royal kept him confined in.

He burst through the stable door and sighed in relief at the sight of Kurt, pitchfork in hand, laying fresh hay for the horses in their stalls. Through his loose-fitting linen shirt, Sebastian could see the muscles in his arms while he worked, shifting and stretching beneath flawless, pale skin. Sebastian admired how Kurt could keep his skin so perfect with all the hard labor he performed every day.

“Why does it always reek of horse shit in here?” Sebastian asked to announce his presence, loosening the collar of his shirt.

“Because this is a stable, Your Highness,” Kurt answered without turning from his work. “It’s full of horses and their shit.”

Sebastian watched Kurt continue his work, effectively ignoring him and his mounting frustrations.

“Do you think you could cease shoveling and spare a moment for me?” Sebastian asked.

“A moment with you will turn into the entire evening, Sire,” Kurt chuckled. “Let me get these poor animals fed so I can take my time with you.”

Sebastian pushed past the stable hand and headed to the rear of the shelter, straight to Kurt’s meager quarters.

“Eager tonight, are we?” Kurt teased gently. He had no desire to incur the prince’s ire, but he liked taking occasional advantage of the fact that here, in this stable, where he had total control, he had permission to treat his prince so familiar. Besides, he caught a glimpse of the prince’s ‘playdate’ with the Princess Fabray.

Kurt knew very well the prince’s pain.

He carried it, too.

Kurt gave the broodmare in the stall an extra helping of oats and patted her back comfortingly. She would foal soon, and it made Kurt’s chest tighten with bittersweet hopes and dreams, each one fracturing a bit every day that the prince’s wedding drew near. Horses had such simple lives. They lived in the stables and ran in the yards, their every need taken care of. They ran where their wills took them, and they fucked where they pleased. In the stable of the king, the horses were neither traded nor sold, and his favorites, cared for by Kurt, never went to war. How wonderful it would be to live out his life as a horse, Kurt thought. Then he rolled his eyes at his own foolishness.

He followed the prince to his room and saw him struggling with his clothes. He managed to tear off the coat and toss it on Kurt’s bed, but the shirt was giving him some trouble.

“Could we just get this started,” Sebastian growled, nearly ripping off the uncooperative garment. Kurt caught the delicate shirt when it finally slipped from Sebastian’s shoulders and hung it along with the coat carefully on a dull hook in the corner.

Prince Sebastian stood before Kurt shirtless, back turned to the stable hand, breathing deeply, chest heaving in anticipation. Kurt took a moment to appreciate the body of the man who started coming to him more and more recently, in need of release…and sometimes, in need of comfort. Kurt rounded on Sebastian. He stood before him, stripped off his own shirt, and tossed it aside. He allowed the prince this time to lay eyes on his body. He wore only his leather work pants, the supple fabric clinging to his thighs. Kurt let Sebastian’s eyes wander where they pleased, gawk openly, and once Kurt noticed the growing bulge in the front of Sebastian’s pants twitch with interest, he knew Sebastian had seen enough. Kurt pointed sharply to the ground and seeing the signal from his Dom, Sebastian lowered his eyes to the floor.

“Arms out,” Kurt commanded, no more need for ceremony or fancy titles now that Sebastian had silently shown his willingness to submit.

Sebastian raised his arms and grabbed the posts at either side of him, keeping his eyes downcast while his Dom worked. Slowly and methodically, Kurt bound Sebastian’s wrists to the wood, wrapping them with leather straps and pulling the ends tight, hearing the prince sigh when the leather bit into his skin.

“You like that?” Kurt asked, smiling, running a hand up Sebastian’s spine, rubbing over his shoulders and pushing down on his bowed neck. “Of course, you do. You always do.”

Without permission to speak, Sebastian stood obediently and listened.

In the confines of Kurt’s quarters, his sub didn’t have permission to speak…only to scream.

Kurt stole a moment to clean up, washing the layer of filth from his body with water from a basin on the table beside his bed. He grimaced when the clear water turned brown with dust, as did the towel he wiped down with. He opened a chest by his bedside and pulled out a braided whip along with a pair of leather gloves, both gifts from the prince after the first time Sebastian wandered down to the stables in search of Kurt’s services. At the time, Sebastian barely knew himself; barely understood where his strange urges came from. He had noticed Kurt before, of course he had; who but the blind and the stupid could not. He was fair and strong, even back then, but kept mostly to himself. God, he seemed so quiet, so innocent to Sebastian’s eyes.

After watching Kurt spend the afternoon breaking a new pair of stallions – a gift from the Belgium ambassador – Sebastian simply knew.

He knew what he needed, and that night he sought Kurt out – to have Kurt break _him_ like one of his horses.

They taught each other, learned together, and as time passed Sebastian came to Kurt almost nightly, until the marks on his back frightened his servants. They would have sent most of the household into a fury had it not been for Hunter and his uncanny ability to stop wagging tongues.

Falling in love with Kurt…well, that was something that Sebastian hadn’t expected.

Kurt slipped the gloves over his hands and then ran his hands all over Sebastian’s body, starting down at his ankles, drawing his hands up Sebastian’s legs, firmly massaging the muscles of the prince’s thighs, brushing over the outline of his hard cock aching in the restrictive pants. Kurt would have taken great pleasure in grabbing the impressive length and stroking it until Sebastian came, but he knew that wasn’t what the prince needed. His hands traveled up Sebastian’s flanks and his chest, pinching both nipples hard and soliciting a stifled groan. Kurt hugged Sebastian from behind, fitting their bodies together so that Sebastian could feel every curve and plane of his body against him.

Kurt felt Sebastian lean back toward him, longing to be close to him.

“That’ll come soon enough,” Kurt said. “That’ll come as soon as you do, sweetheart.”

Kurt released him and stepped away, and Sebastian whimpered silently beneath his breath.

“Was there something you wanted to say, sweetheart?” Kurt said, picking up his whip, feeling the weight of it in his hand, holding it so the braid didn’t brush against the dirty floor. He came back to where the prince stood and rested his head against the man’s shoulder. Sebastian shivered, holding on by a thread, and Kurt hadn’t even started yet.

“Please,” Sebastian breathed, his voice wavering, heavy with desperation.

“Alright, sweetheart,” Kurt whispered, letting the words fall over Sebastian’s shoulders and slide down his skin.

Kurt moved away again, and without any warning, snapped the whip into the air. The first crack of Kurt’s whip didn’t connect to Sebastian’s skin. It was only meant to prepare him for what was to come. The sound of it, the promise in that sound as it broke the air around them filled Sebastian’s body with a surge of unbridled heat. It loosened every muscle, released his inhibitions; gave him permission to be a man, not a prince. Kurt ran the leather braid of the whip over Sebastian’s skin with light, playful touches, watching goose bumps blossom on the prince’s smooth, tan back and arms. The prince’s skin, dotted with freckles and pulled tight over his muscular frame, made Kurt’s mouth water. He knew how it tasted, how it felt beneath his tongue, how it felt against his back when Sebastian pounded into him from behind.

Kurt walked back a few paces and watched Sebastian prepare for the first hit, his muscles tightening to absorb the blow. It made Kurt immensely hard to watch such a powerful man like Prince Sebastian, shrewd and clever, feared by his enemies and loved by his kingdom, submit.

Kurt took his time, eying the area right across his spine where thin, white marks had already heeled over other lighter, silvery marks. He raised his arm, but before he could bring the whip down he heard one last, soft plea from the prince’s lips.

“Kurt?”

The whip cut through the air, the end of it slicing down Sebastian’s back. The tethered prince threw his head back and screamed through clenched teeth.

“God!” he groaned, breathing out quickly.

“I love the way you sound the first time,” Kurt moaned. “I love hearing you scream.”

“More,” Sebastian begged. “Please, or I’m going to go mad.”

“No one told you to speak,” Kurt said with delight, holding his whip at bay.

Sebastian dropped his head and whined, pressing his lips into a tight line to keep from making any more remarks, one in particular on the tip of his tongue that would most likely have him untied and sent home.

Kurt watched Sebastian’s breathing slow, his body relax, and when calm had overtaken him, Kurt brought the whip down again, moving closer so more of the braid bit into his back.

“Augh! Christ!” Sebastian growled, his arms shaking, tugging reflexively against the straps binding his wrists and pulling them tighter.

Kurt held tight to the whip handle, feeling his heart race in his chest. Another crack of his whip cutting into Sebastian’s back made the prince’s knees buckle. He grabbed at the wooden posts and held firm, righting his feet beneath him.

Kurt brought the whip down again, harder than before, and the scream that escaped the prince’s throat morphed into a moan. His knees buckled again and this time he almost fell completely to the floor.

“Now, now,” Kurt tutted, swallowing down the stirrings of his own erection, begging to be free from his pants. “We wouldn’t want you breaking your pretty little wrists. Stand up like the good boy you are.”

Sebastian regained his footing, his knees wobbling as he waited.

Kurt reached down a gloved hand, snaked it beneath the waist of his pants and grabbed his cock. He held himself, squeezing below the head, suppressing the craving to stroke himself. Holding his hard length in his hand, he brought the whip down again, and again, harder, and then less so, letting Sebastian’s mutters and groans fuel his own desires. Sebastian held on to the posts, fingers straining, knuckles white, while his body slumped and his knees fought to keep him upright. Four more stripes and Sebastian’s back was nearly painted red, but still he begged for more.

“Do you want to cum, Sebastian?” Kurt asked, his voice low, merely a growl in the back of his throat. He approached the prince slowly, letting Sebastian hear his footsteps on the floor behind him. Kurt surveyed the crisscross marks on Sebastian’s back, wondering how it felt, wondering how he could get off on being whipped the way he did, but the look of them, slightly grotesque and swollen, made Kurt long for release himself. “Do you want me to make you cum?”

“Y-y-yes,” Sebastian mumbled, his voice struggling to be heard past the chattering of his teeth.

“Do you want to cum off the end of my whip, Sebastian?”

“Y-y-yes.” Sebastian’s voice was nearly inaudible this time, but Kurt didn’t need to hear him say it. The answer was the same every time.

Kurt retreated again, forgetting the pain of his erection to focus on what he knew would happen next. He brought the whip down lightly on Sebastian’s shoulder, but it was enough to make him weak. One more time on the opposite shoulder almost obliterated his grasp on the wooden post.

“Oh, God,” Sebastian whispered into the air. Kurt could tell from his breathy gasp that he almost had him. The whip snapped at Sebastian’s lower back, in those dimples where Kurt loves to fit his hands when they get the chance to make love. Sebastian’s hips lurched forward, and a quiet, “yes,” passed his lips.

One more. Kurt knew he only needed one more, and he picked his spot carefully, a spot that had taken a lot of practicing on his own to perfect.

A spot that had become the prince’s favorite by far.

Kurt snapped the whip out along Sebastian’s waist, where the braided length wrapped around his hip and hit his throbbing cock, with enough force to sting, but not enough to do any damage.

But it was all he needed.

“Fuck!” Sebastian moaned and came with a string of muttered curses, his knees giving out and his wrists pulling on the leather straps until Kurt thought they might dislocate. Kurt dropped his whip and rushed over with a tall stool for the prince to drop down onto, giving Kurt time to undo the leather straps from the posts, and then from Sebastian’s wrists, taking care with the sore, broken skin.

“Kurt…I…” Sebastian muttered with his eyes half-lidded, lust blown pupils searching Kurt’s body while he worked. The fingers of Sebastian’s freed left hand toyed at the strings of Kurt’s pants while Kurt worked to untie the left.

“Sebastian…” Kurt warned, panting as tired, shaking fingertips brushed the head of his neglected erection.

“Kurt,” Sebastian mumbled, “I want to…”

“No, Your Highness,” Kurt said firmly. He wrapped his arms around Sebastian’s waist and lifted him from the stool, helping Sebastian limp his way onto the bed, “you can barely stand.”

“I don’t…need to stand…for what I have in mind,” Sebastian stuttered, and Kurt immediately got a vivid image of his gorgeous prince on his knees, pink lips stretched around his cock, taking him down his throat to the hilt, sparkling green eyes staring up at him with no shame, no superiority, no lines or borders or boundaries between them. It was almost a tempting enough image to make Kurt give in, but he couldn’t. It wouldn’t feel right. It would feel like taking advantage of a tired and wounded man.

“Maybe when you can stand on your own, I’ll let you,” Kurt said, trying to think of anything he could to make his persistent hard-on die.

He laid Sebastian down on his stomach. He refilled his basin of water and dusted the cool liquid with healing herbs that he remembered his mother using to heal cuts and bruises when he was younger, long before he entered the king’s service. They worked well against infection, and cut down the sting, but most of all, they sped the scabbing of the wounds. Any mark against the prince’s skin stabbed at Kurt, regardless of how hot whipping him was. Kurt emptied and refilled the basin three times before the wounds were well cleaned.

Kurt pulled off Sebastian’s shoes, pants, and stockings, leaving him exposed to the cool air. Kurt disrobed completely and climbed onto the bed beside him. Sebastian’s hand reached out instinctually to find Kurt, to hold his hand or touch his shoulder, anything to let him know that Kurt was there beside him.

“You will be staying on here, will you not? After I am wed?” Sebastian asked. It was a question made of more than one feeling. It was a statement, a command, a prince relaying an order that would be followed without dispute; but it was also a plea, a hope, a gentle request.

“I was not commanded otherwise,” Kurt replied, hiding his smile. Sebastian laced their fingers together and brought them to his mouth, kissing Kurt’s knuckles.

“Will you be telling Princess Fabray about us then?”

Sebastian’s kisses stopped, and Kurt wished he could take his question back, but he also needed to know.

“Why would she need to know?” Sebastian asked.

“Well, she is to be your wife,” Kurt said matter-of-factly. “Don’t you think she deserves to know?”

“No,” Sebastian said with a catch in his voice. “No, she doesn’t. I will not share you and I will not lose you. Do you understand?”

“But _I’m_ sharing you,” Kurt grumbled.

“It’s not the same,” Sebastian said, “and you know it.”

“But…”

“No, Kurt,” Sebastian interrupted. “It’s different. You understand, don’t you?” Sebastian let out a heavy, shuddering sigh. “Please say you do.”

Kurt sighed, sinking further into the thin mattress with his arm wrapped around the prince’s middle, avoiding putting too much pressure on his back.

“Yes, Your Highness,” he said, leaning over to kiss Sebastian’s cheek. “I understand.”

Kurt drew his blanket over them and kissed Sebastian softly on the nape of his neck, feeling the body in his arms relax at the soothing touch of his lips. Kurt let his breathing follow Sebastian’s, till they inhaled together and exhaled together, drifting off to sleep, with a sympathetic Hunter guarding the stable door, ready to wake his prince before dawn.


	100. Pudding at 3 A.M.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this is a fluffy little one-shot that combines the anon prompts 'Kurt changes his lotion and Seb notices' and 'Seb acting like a child'. AU where Kurt and Seb live in the loft in NYC with Rachel and Santana.

Kurt sighs, hovering between awake and asleep, in that place where everything feels warm and safe, and he can just see the beginning wisps of his dreams before unconsciousness completely envelopes him and the world goes black.

That’s about when the annoying tickling sensation starts bothering his face, his neck, his ear, his cheek…accompanied by the sound of some large, obnoxious animal snuffling and trying to snort his face. Kurt scrunches his nose to keep from sneezing when (what he registers as a strand of hair) irritates his nose.

“Seb…Sebastian?” Kurt mutters. “What are you doing?”

“I’m sniffing you,” Sebastian says matter-of-factly.

“I figured that out for myself.” Kurt frowns, realizing that the blissful oblivion of sleep that he could nearly touch seconds ago is slipping away from him fast. “What I would like to know is why?”

“You smell like chocolate.” Sebastian buries his head in the crook of Kurt’s neck and inhales deeply. “Why do you smell like chocolate? You usually smell all flowery and shit.”

Kurt groans, opening his eyelids slowly, praying every millisecond that this is all just a dream. Soon, the chorus will arrive and they’ll start the opening strains of a huge musical number with Kurt starring as Noel Coward. He blinks his eyes a couple of times, bidding goodbye to a beautiful night’s sleep, and is greeted by the sight of Sebastian’s accusing green eyes.

“I ran out of my usual moisturizer and had to borrow some of Rachel’s,” Kurt explains, frustrated and exhausted. Sebastian raises an eyebrow. Apparently, Kurt’s explanation doesn’t answer his question completely. “It’s cocoa butter,” Kurt sighs.

“So, it smells like chocolate?” Sebastian asks, his eyes lighting up with excitement.

“Implied by the word ‘cocoa’,” Kurt drawls sarcastically. “Geez, how did you get into NYU anyway?”

“Does it… _taste_ like chocolate?” Sebastian’s smile grows infinitely as he launches himself at Kurt’s neck, lapping at his skin hungrily.

“U-unfortunately…” Kurt moans, unable to finish his sentence when Sebastian’s tongue swirls over his neck and he breathes Kurt in, tasting him. Suddenly, Sebastian recoils, spitting over the side of the bed.

“Nice,” Kurt groans, looking up at the ceiling and rolling his eyes.

“God! That’s disgusting!” Sebastian grouses, wiping at his tongue with the hem of his t-shirt.

“Yeah, well, just because it smells like chocolate doesn’t mean it tastes like chocolate. It’s still lotion.”

Sebastian finally drops down on the pillow beside Kurt and stares up at the ceiling.

“I really hoped it would taste like chocolate.” Sebastian wipes his tongue one final time to completely eliminate the bitter flavor from his mouth.

“For a moment there, so did I,” Kurt confesses, blowing out a long breath while he tries to convince his stirring cock to go back to sleep.

At least one of them should get some rest.

Sebastian sighs.

“Kurt?” he says, staring at the same spot that Kurt is eying.

“Yeah?”

“Kurt…I’m hungry,” Sebastian says.

“Then go get yourself something to eat.”

“But…but I want chocolate.”

Kurt puts his hands to his face and hides his eyes.

“You want me to make you pudding, don’t you?”

“Only if it’s not too much trouble.”

Kurt sits straight up and looks at his clock, glowering at the numbers glowing red and mocking him.

“Sebastian! It’s barely past three in the morning! Of course it’s too much trouble.”

“Fine,” Sebastian whines, grabbing Kurt’s shoulder and yanking him back down onto the bed, “fucking forget about it then.”

Sebastian starts drumming his fingers on his stomach, inadvertently shaking the bed in the process. Kurt turns and looks at Sebastian with disgust.

“You’re not going to let me get any sleep until I make you pudding, are you?”

Sebastian smirks slightly, but doesn’t respond, which answers Kurt’s question for him.

“Fine,” Kurt groans and rolls out of bed. Sebastian smacks him hard on the ass when he stands up, “but you’d better enjoy it, because this is it.”

“That’s what you said last time,” Sebastian calls after him triumphantly, “and the time before that.”

Kurt mutters angrily, blowing through the privacy curtain and stumbling into the kitchen, completely ignoring Dani and Santana making out on the couch as he passes by.

“So… _mmm_ …you’re actually going to make… _hmph_ …the meerkat some pudding?” Santana manages to ask between sloppy kisses.

“Yup,” Kurt answers, pulling out a sauce pan from the cabinet and clanging it loudly on the stove.

“Why?” Dani asks, giggling when Santana nibbles on her earlobe.

“Because,” Kurt responds with a secret smile, “ever since I’ve started dating Sebastian I’ve completely lost control of my life.”

 

 

 

 


	101. Put It All In Writing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another one-shot for the anon prompt ‘ghost’ - Sebastian loses kurt, but is anyone really lost if you remember them? Warning for character death, anxiety, generic talk of injuries (limb loss), non-graphic thoughts of suicide. Do you need to cry? Read this…

_Phantom_ _pain_.

It’s a ridiculous name for what he’s going through. The term _phantom_ _pain_ makes it sound more like he gained a demonic spirit, when in reality he lost a limb. His right arm - gone. Now he’s going to have to become romantically acquainted with his left hand. He gives it a shot when he finally gets a moment alone; when the nurses and doctors leave his room and he has a rare precious second to himself. He breathes in deep and exhales out slowly through tight lips. He reaches beneath his hospital gown. The first time he thought about masturbating here, he was cockblocked by a catheter. Now that they pulled it, he is free to try and jerk off at his leisure. He wraps his fingers, weak and shaky, around his flaccid cock. Lying in the uncomfortable hospital bed, he shifts awkwardly, trying to find a position that works better, that gives him a little leverage to compensate for muscles that refuse to work, but that’s not the problem. He’s never done this with his left hand before. It feels too foreign; not even like himself doing it, but a stranger.

It doesn’t matter.

It’s not the hand he wants.

He lets go and rolls onto his side, giving up.

Sebastian shuts his eyes and goes over the schedule for the day in his head.

Plans made for his release.

Preparations for outpatient physical and occupational therapy.

Psych evaluations.

Support groups.

A brand new apartment.

All the signs of getting over his loss and moving on.

The doctors are wrong; each and every one of them wrong.

The phantom pain that incapacitates him has nothing to do with his missing arm and everything to do with his missing heart - lying on a gurney and locked in the refrigerator (the nurse’s words, not his) down in the morgue.

Kurt…waiting for Sebastian to come down and say goodbye.

His brother arrives after lunch to take him home.

Well, not home, really, but the place he’ll be living for now on.

His parents can’t make it. Like with every monumental event in his life, they are abroad, escaping responsibility and reality by getting as far away from the problem as possible.

This once, Sebastian can’t blame them. He doesn’t have much to say on behalf of his parents, but with all of their faults, there was one thing they did right.

They loved Kurt, too.

In the end, Sebastian can’t say goodbye. He gets into the elevator with his brother holding his hand, and a sympathetic female nurse smiling supportively by his side, but as they descend, as the passing floors he can see on the occasion when the doors open and other patients and passengers get on and off become emptier and darker, he feels a weight settle over him. The air becomes chill. Everything becomes quieter, and Sebastian can feel ghosts watching him.

Two floors above their intended destination, Sebastian starts to hyperventilate. He pushes the red stop button and collapses to the floor, sobbing and choking like a pathetic, lost child. He doesn’t want to see his husband, because it won’t be him. It’s not Kurt lying on a cold, metal slab in some dark box keeping him cold. It’s just a body, a corpse. It won’t have his heat, his smell, his smile, his beautiful blue eyes and that voice that will haunt Sebastian until the day he turns up his toes and joins him in a dark box, in the cold.

He hears the nurse and his brother arguing, voices muffled and mumbled, as if he’s hearing them from beneath a pool of water, and Sebastian’s drowning while they’re debating whether he should go back to his room or go home. His brother wins, pushing the button for the lobby and practically carrying Sebastian away, with the disgruntled nurse padding after them, muttering her objections until she realizes it won’t do any good and lets them go.

Sebastian falls asleep in the back seat of the town car with his head on his brother’s lap. He doesn’t even remember doing it, but mere seconds after sitting on the leather upholstery, his brother shakes him awake.

Sebastian doesn’t really know where they are, only that it’s in the same building as his brother and sister-in-law. A new apartment, still smelling of fresh carpet and paint, and not a single shred of his old life to be found – no pictures, none of Kurt’s carefully chosen furnishings, none of his clothing or things; theoretically, a brand new start, a completely clean slate, but it’s not. The ghosts followed Sebastian there, and he finds himself, night after night, awake on the sofa watching Korean soap operas, needing the verbal static to keep him sane.

His first week alone is nothing more than one long day punctuated by stretches of dark in between and a myriad of appointments so similar and unexceptional that they all bleed one into the other. A taxi takes him to doctor A, and an hour later from doctor A to doctor B, and again an hour later to doctor C; long musty elevator rides to the exact same looking office in seven different buildings. Each counselor and doctor has their own spin on his situation, each appointment capped off with the gift of a journal to chronicle his struggle and his pain. Make it real. Put it all in writing.

“It’s okay to talk about your feelings.” _journal_

“It’s okay to keep it all inside.” _journal_

“It’s okay to ask for help.” _journal_

“It’s okay to need time for yourself.” _journal_

And his favorite of the bunch, “The universe/fate/God has a plan. There are no accidents. Everything happens for a reason.” _journal, journal, journal_

Because of that final tidbit of trite knowledge, Sebastian starts doing things that have absolutely no reason.

He walks into the kitchen in the morning, fills his mug with hot coffee, and leaves it on the counter. An hour later, he returns and knocks it to the floor, letting it shatter into a hundred pieces. He walks away from the mess and leaves it to ruin the tile.

The next day, he goes to any thrift store he can find within walking distance of his apartment and buys every used knife they sell. When he has more than enough to open his own abattoir, he starts jamming the blades into the walls, lining the hallways, all over the living room, stabbing straight through the dry wall, stopping in the bedroom where he does the most damage – three hundred and fifty two knives in total, until his palm is blistered and the space between his thumb and forefinger bleed.

He goes back to his soaps and doesn’t look at the knives again till bedtime, when his attention is drawn to the wall in his bedroom. He was certain he had stabbed the wall randomly, but instead he had created an abstract mosaic in cutlery of a single word – _Kurt_.

Sebastian doesn’t go back into the bedroom for several days after that, until his brother and a few friends come over, remove all the knives, and repair the wall.

From that day on, Sebastian refuses to leave his apartment. He doesn’t go to the doctors. He doesn’t visit his brother. He doesn’t get his mail, or answer the door when anyone comes to call. He doesn’t shave or change out of his pajamas. He doesn’t even bathe. One evening, he discovers that his normal Korean soap has gone on hiatus and has been replaced with some game show where contestants take bites out of random objects in a room to see which ones are made out of chocolate. For the first time in over a month, he turns off the t.v.

He collects up the journals, seven in all, and stacks them in the center of the living room floor. He sits down with the column of journals in front of him. He takes the first one, opens it up, and tears the pages from the spine, one by one. It’s difficult at first, having to hold the journal open with his leg and grabbing the pages with his least used hand, but soon he gets a rhythm going. He listens to the sound of paper rending, the thud-thud-thud as he slowly pulls it from the binding, or the loud screech when he rips it out quickly.

With the first book in shreds, he tosses the binding aside and does the same to each of the remaining journals, tearing the pages out as time ticks by around him. His hand is sore when he reaches the final journal. He opens the book and grabs the top corner of the first page, preparing to rip, but then he looks at the blank page and stops. All of the journals before this one had been identical – black faux leather cover, white lined pages, as if there was some grief relief supply store that every doctor shopped at and bought these things in bulk, wholesale no less. But this final journal was a light, walnut brown color, the binding soft instead of rigid, and the pages edged in gold. He can’t remember which of the otherwise nameless PhD’s had given him this one – the grief counselor with the gold rimmed glasses and the tremulous little smile, or the body dysmorphia counselor who was once a drill sergeant in the marines before he lost both his legs and found his higher calling. Either way, something about this journal speaks to him, and no matter how hard he tries (and he does try) he can’t tear a single page.

Sebastian looks at the blank pages and sighs. He stands up and carries the book with him to the bedroom. He digs through a forest of amber prescription bottles in his bedside table and finds a black ballpoint pen. He sits on the bed and opens the book to the first blank page, holding the pen above it. Several times he tries to start writing, and each time he stops. More than once he considers giving up and tossing the journal into the disposal, but a voice in his head, a distant whisper, convinces him not to. He sighs and writes the first thing he thinks of.

_This sucks._

He looks at the two words and scoffs. He remembers one of the counselors telling him he could try writing a list of the things he likes and dislikes about his life now.

_Living alone sucks._

_Instant coffee sucks._

_Holes in my walls suck._

_Midtown Manhattan sucks._

He looks at the list and grimaces.

_It sucks that nothing smells the same without you._

_It sucks that I’ll never have your Nutella crepes again._

_It sucks that the last thing I said to you was, “Fucking shut up! I’m taking the L.I.E. and that’s that!”_

_It sucks that you were right, and that I didn’t listen to you…that I never listened to you._

He looks at the list again and runs a hand over his eyes, banishing tears from his cheeks that he didn’t realize had started falling.

_It sucks that I don’t have a single recording of you singing._

_It sucks that I let Charlie give away all of your clothes, and send all of our photos to your dad._

_It sucks that I didn’t tell you enough how much I really loved you._

The list becomes longer, and the words aren’t just written, but etched into the paper as he presses harder, nearly tearing through the pages.

_It sucks that I was such a coward that I couldn’t even say goodbye to you._

_It sucks that we hadn’t made love for two days before you died._

_It sucks that we never had that daughter you always wanted, and I was too stubborn to get you a fucking cat._

He’s sobbing uncontrollably by the time the book is halfway full; tears – some angry, some heavy with regret – wetting his face, his shirt, the pages. His handwriting is indecipherable, and sometimes not even in English, but there comes a point when he can’t think of anything else to say, and his hand shakes so badly (seeing as he wasn’t left handed to begin with, and now he has to make due) that he doesn’t have the strength to continue writing anymore.

He drops the pen and tries to read the final entry, but he can’t hold the pages back with one shaking hand, so he tosses the book violently over the side of the bed and crawls beneath the comforter, his entire body trembling with agony and despair. He’s been a fighter his whole life, but he doesn’t want to fight, not when there’s nothing to fight for anymore; when there’s nobody in his life that makes the fighting worthwhile.

Without even realizing it, he’s made a decision for the rest of his life. He just needs to find a way to carry it out.

He falls asleep, but he doesn’t dream.

Instead he plans.

He’s getting better at making plans and lists. He’s good at dealing with the minutiae and the details.

It’s the implementing he needs to practice more, but luckily he only needs one try to get this right.

The sun rises and for once he rises with it. He opens his bedside table and takes out the bottles of pills – sleeping pills, anti-depressants, pain relievers, stool softeners. He chuckles wryly at the idea of overdosing on pills prescribed to make him regular while he lines up all the bottles and turns his forest into an army.

He reaches for a tall, thin bottle; at peace with himself for the first time since he’s left the hospital. He flips open the cap, preparing to down the whole thing, but a flash of brown catches his eye.

A shade of walnut brown that distinctly looks like the color of Kurt’s hair.

Sebastian’s body reacts, going rigid at first, and then dissolving with relief. He turns his head, flush with happiness, ready to greet his husband, almost willing to accept that everything that’s happened in the last few months was just some horrible dream, even while his rational brain prepares him for the shock of the truth.

It’s not Kurt. Of course it’s not Kurt. These stories never have a happy ending.

It’s the journal.

Sebastian turns his head and sees the abandoned book lying on the carpet where Sebastian had tossed it. Except, not exactly where he remembers it landing, but that hardly matters. He should ignore it and continue on with his plan, but like the night before, there’s something about it that Sebastian can’t force himself to ignore. He stops mid-mouthful of what he discovers with amusement is actually a bottle of Vitamin D, and slides off the mattress onto the floor. He picks up the soft journal, better able to handle it now that his hand isn’t shaking. He opens to the first page and sees the words he wrote, sloppy and slanted incorrectly, but relatively clear.

_This sucks._

Sebastian has no intention of reading every word he wrote. Some of them aren’t even legible. He catches snippets and pieces here and there among the miasma that make sense.

_I miss you._

_I can’t live without you._

_I love you._

Sebastian stops on four words nestled within the sloppy mess. They stand out because the handwriting is perfect; a graceful flourish of one letter morphing into the next, but most of all, because they are written in response to his own words.

_I love you, too._

Sebastian squints, a little dumbfounded, but decides to let it go. He was frantic last night. Much of what he knows is his own handwriting looks foreign, especially written with his left hand. He catches more words and blurbs and phrases, some of them out-of-place and patently ridiculous, because they had been resolved and forgotten long ago…or so he thought.

_I should have danced with you that night at Scandals._

_I didn’t really want anything to do with Blaine._

_I couldn’t take my eyes off of you._

_I wanted so much to make you jealous._

Again, another phrase, written in response to his confession, catches his attention.

_I know._

Sebastian’s heart starts to speed. He’s finally gone mad. He was going mad before, but the 2,000 mg of Vitamin D he just swallowed must have tipped him over the edge, and now – visual hallucinations.

Were visual hallucinations a side-effect of too much Vitamin D? Didn’t one of the counselors warn him about that? Which one? The guy with the unfortunate long neck who looked like an ostrich, or the woman with one too many face lifts to be real?

He flips through the book, where words are steadily replaced by deep, dark marks that look more like scars than actual words, until he finds something that’s clear enough to read –

_I’m scared that you were never really proud to be with me._

…with another separate response scrawled into the margin -

_I was always proud to be with you._

Sebastian flips to the end. He knows there’s probably more in the middle, but he needs to know how it ends. He always did this with books he wanted to read, and it always drove Kurt completely up a wall. He gets to the last few pages and finds the last passage he wrote.

_I can’t do this. I don’t want to be alone. I need to end it now._

Sebastian gasps, hardly able to believe that he wrote those words. He definitely feels them, but to see them written so plainly makes it seem more real.

Kurt was dead, and Sebastian wanted, more than anything, to be dead, too.

He sees the words in his peripheral vision before he registers their meaning, and he smiles – a true, honest smile. His face has become so unused to the concept that his cheeks hurt. He takes his time, savoring the idea of them being there before he flicks his eyes down the page, and when he reads them, he can hear Kurt’s voice scolding him in his head –

_Sebastian Smythe! Don’t you dare do anything so stupid! This isn’t the life I wanted for you, baby. Now get off your ass and for the sake of all that is good and sacred in this world…take a fucking shower!_

Sebastian laughs for a long time while he reads and re-reads the words.

He’s not completely convinced that he didn’t write the words himself in his psychotic state, but it’s nice to think that maybe, just maybe, Kurt was with him; somehow, in a thought, a dream, or a few words in a journal, still with him.

Then Sebastian notices words written further down the page, words he can swear weren’t there before.

_If you remember me, I’ll always be with you._

 

 


	102. One in a Million

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another one-shot for the prompt ‘blind date’. Kurt gets unintentionally thrown into the world of Internet dating.

Kurt stares at his cell phone, re-reading the last text he received, and then checks across the street at the brightly lit restaurant that’s teeming with activity. Music bumps so loudly from the outdoor speakers that he can clearly understand every word from where he stands. People wait in a massive line outside to get in; a line that gets longer by the minute. He blows out an anxious breath, bouncing on the balls of his feet to keep from freezing to death. First impressions are crucial, and Kurt Hummel does not appreciate tardiness. He almost considers calling it quits altogether. Blind dates definitely aren’t Kurt’s thing, but Rachel had taken it upon herself to make him a profile on some trendy Internet dating site called (quite originally) _BlindDates.com._

It’s apparently a kitschy new take on boring old match ‘em up sites. You make your profile, which includes filling out some horrendous survey with over a hundred questions on it; everything from your favorite color to your opinion on the actions of the U.S. troops overseas (which explained Rachel’s bizarre random question assault of the past week). The site finds someone you’re compatible with (minimum requirements being 85% suitability based on your answers to the survey) and then they set you up. They advertise that their system guarantees you a ‘one in a million true love match’. The kitschy part? You don’t get to know your potential love match’s name or see a picture. You get a third party phone number you send text messages to, and communicate that way.

According to the profile Rachel set up, Kurt’s date for the night matches him 92%. The idea of meeting his possible Doppelganger both intrigues and terrifies him.

To Kurt it sounds more like an invitation to sexual assault, but he hasn’t had a date in over six months, and despite everything he does to take his mind off his dwindling social life, he is feeling kind of lonely. He’s not really looking for a relationship; hell, he’s not even all that interested in sex right now. He just wants someone (other than Bruce) to cuddle with, to watch a movie with; someone to talk to who isn’t Rachel or Mercedes, regardless of how much he loves them. Still, Internet dating seems so desperate…and dangerous, but Rachel assures him repeatedly that this company has a proven track record of thoroughly pre-screening potential clients, and to date, there have been no reported rapes or deaths (that last part, he’s sure, is a failed Rachel Berry attempt at humor, but nevertheless reassuring).

Kurt sticks his hands in the pockets of his coat, gripping his cell phone like a lifeline in his left fist. Times Square is really hopping tonight. His eyes wander the sea of people, mostly couples, racing by to get to a club, a restaurant, a movie theater. He and his mystery man are meeting at the Hard Rock Café, the restaurant Kurt’s been watching that’s currently blaring _Every Breath You Take_ by The Police. Kurt got there early and set up surveillance from the corner across the street. He watches the people waiting in line, figuring that if he sees someone who looks even remotely like a potential rapist or murderer, he’ll run for his life, but his mystery date is already ten minutes late.

That, to Kurt, is a mortal sin.

His phone vibrates in his fist and he immediately pulls it out, fumbling the screen lock with cold and eager fingers to read the new message.

_“I’m here.”_

Kurt can feel excitement take over, overshadowing better judgment as he sends a text back.

_“So am I.”_

Barely a second after he hits send, he gets a text back.

_“I’m heading for the entrance. We have priority seating. Meet you there.”_

Kurt can’t help but be a little impressed that his date, whoever he is, thought to reserve priority seating. That meant no waiting in that now tremendous line. He holds his phone tight in his grip and starts crossing the street, watching all the men who approach the restaurant, then stops dead in his tracks.

“What the…”

A tall man in a grey coat, weaving his way through the crowd, catches Kurt’s eye. He looks so uncannily familiar. Even from this distance, and lit mostly by street lamps and ambient neon lighting, there’s no mistaking his cocky swagger, his upswept brown hair, his piercing eyes (whose color remains to be seen), and the signature half-smirk on his lips.

“No way,” Kurt whispers. “It can’t be.”

The man looks up and Kurt can see him more clearly…and it definitely was.

Sebastian Smythe.

The last person Kurt expected to run into in New York. Last Kurt heard from the rumor mill was that Sebastian had gone back to France, pretty much right after graduating Dalton. Apparently, the rumors were wrong.

Guess that’s why they’re called rumors. They’re not always so reliable.

Kurt has to admit that the years have been generous to Sebastian; more than generous. Even beneath the long coat he has pulled tightly around his frame, Kurt can tell that the preening peacock he once knew has filled out considerably; not that he wasn’t already built when Kurt met him (if he had been forced to admit it…at gun-point…while holding a bomb). Time has broadened his shoulders and leaned out his face, making his cheekbones more sculpted, his brow more defined.

The years might have made him better looking, but they probably haven’t improved his personality, and Kurt will be damned if an already awkward situation like a blind date is going to be tainted by the presence of Sebastian Smythe. He retreats back across the street and quickly composes another text.

_“Sorry to change horses mid-stream, but is there any way we can go somewhere else? I just saw someone heading toward the entrance that I’d rather not bump into inside.”_

Kurt hits send and sighs, wondering what kind of message he’s most likely to get back. He smiles at the words that appear on his screen.

_“Someone you need me to beat up?”_

Kurt shakes his head and types a reply.

_“No. I’d just feel more comfortable if we went somewhere else.”_

Kurt taps his foot, waiting for a reply.

_“Okay. Why don’t we go to Junior’s? It’s not too far from here. Do you know where it is?”_

Kurt mumbles to himself happily as he types his message back.

_“Yes, I do. Sounds great! See you there.”_

Kurt hits send and starts to make his way back across the street. He looks over at the Hard Rock Café, trying to ascertain who might be his date for the evening, scanning the crowd in time to see Sebastian rush off. Kurt stops walking again, confused but relieved. He pulls out his phone.

_“Abort! Abort! It seems like my nemesis is leaving. We can go back to our regularly scheduled date.”_

Kurt hits send, reaching the middle crosswalk and stopping when the light turns red. He keeps a wary eye on Sebastian to make sure that he keeps walking, but suddenly the man stops and pulls out his own cell phone. Kurt watches, his confusion becoming a nagging, irrational concern as Sebastian shakes his head, his smirk growing. He seems to type out a text message and heads back toward the café.

When Kurt’s phone vibrates in his pocket, his mouth goes dry. He looks down at the screen on his phone and nearly chokes.

_“Sweetheart, if you want to dance, let’s take this inside.”_

Kurt stands stuck in his spot. He doesn’t know what he should do, not sure if he should confront Sebastian or run back to his loft in Bushwick and never look back. As he waits on a peculiarly long light, he reasons with himself. He’s not 100% sure that him texting his mystery date and Sebastian sending a text are related. It could be entirely coincidental. Was he going to ditch his date out of fear of running into Sebastian Smythe and miss out on something that could turn out to be truly fantastic? Thinking fast, Kurt sends one last text.

_“I’m crossing the street right now. Could you wait at the cross walk for me?”_

Kurt watches in horror as Sebastian checks his phone, and then heads straight for the cross walk.

Kurt’s insides freeze.

“Oh, you can’t be serious,” Kurt mutters as the light turns green and he trudges heavily across the last short stretch of the street. Sebastian’s eyes go wide when he spots Kurt walking toward him, his grin slow burning and brimming with wicked amusement.

“Well, well, well,” Sebastian says. “Look who the cat dragged in.”

Kurt rolls his eyes and bobs his head.

“Hello, Sebastian,” Kurt says flatly, trying to force a smile and failing.

“So, am I to assume that you are my date for this evening?” Sebastian almost chuckles the last few words, but Kurt can see him blushing despite his usual arrogance. Kurt’s eyes sweep the group that had walked with him across the street, trying to find anyone else he could pin the title of ‘blind date’ on, but seeing as the only people still left around are an elderly couple, a mother and her toddler son in tow, and a teenager dressed all in black and carrying a skateboard, he would have to fess up.

“I guess that would be…me,” Kurt admits, swallowing hard.

Sebastian bows slightly and offers Kurt his arm. Kurt looks at the arm as if it’s going to lash out and strangle him.

“Don’t look so terrified, Hummel,” Sebastian says, taking the initiative to loop his arm beneath Kurt’s rigid limb. “We’re supposedly a match, remember?” Sebastian whispers, staring at Kurt with sincere, moss-colored eyes. “Who knows? I might surprise you.”

Ghosts of the past try to persuade Kurt to tug his arm away and break this off before it begins, but something in the curl of Sebastian’s lip, the way his smile mirrors the glimmer in his eyes, how the blush in Sebastian’s cheeks remains even when he recovers his confidence, convinces Kurt to stay. He nods and loosens up a bit.

“Alright,” Kurt says, leading Sebastian toward the restaurant and the buzzing hive of laughing, talking, dancing people; families out for dinner, couples out on dates – first dates, fifth dates, ninth dates, maybe blind dates as well. This is normal, it happens every day; Kurt just never thought it would happen with Sebastian Smythe.

“So, who’s this douchebag I get to kick the shit out of?” Sebastian asks, flashing a knowing grin.

“Oh, that…” Kurt chuckles. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Are you sure?” Sebastian stops Kurt, raising an eyebrow, keeping his cards close even though Kurt knows exactly what he’s asking.

“Yeah.” Kurt pulls Sebastian toward the door. “I’ll let it go. Who knows? Maybe he’s not so bad after all.”


	103. Actions Speak Louder then Words

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the anon prompt - “Sebastian has trouble saying ‘I love you’” (Futurefic, AU, angst, hurt/comfort, emotional hurt/comfort. Warnings for mention of sex, language)

“God, Hummel…your ass is fantastic…”

Kurt shivers at the compliment, lowering his torso further to the mattress and arching his back, guiding Sebastian right where he needs him.

“Hmm…that’s it…” Sebastian moans. “That’s it…you’re so gorgeous like this, have I ever told you that?”

“You may have mentioned it once or twice,” Kurt manages, going completely still as the sinful assault on his sweet spot continues. He can feel Sebastian’s hips start to stutter, and Kurt swallows hard, finding it difficult to lose himself to the wonderful sensation of Sebastian owning his body, giving him pleasure, when he knows what’s going to happen after – or more to the point, what’s _not_ going to happen after. But no amount of mounting dread can stem the tide of his orgasm as it washes through him, erasing, for one blissful second, everything else.

“Je-jesus,” Sebastian grunts, gripping on to Kurt’s hips tight, marking up pale flesh with his nails, curling them into Kurt’s skin. Kurt collapses onto the bed beneath his lover, allowing euphoria to convince him that maybe, _maybe_ things will be different this time around.

“Holy and shit,” Sebastian mutters, wrapping an arm around Kurt’s sweaty torso and holding him close as he lays his own exhausted body carefully over him, trying not to crush him. “Does that get even more and more amazing, or am I just that good?”

Kurt rolls his eyes and Sebastian laughs into Kurt’s shoulder, not having to see the gesture to know that Kurt is silently judging him.

“Come on, Kurt,” Sebastian teases, nibbling across the line of Kurt’s shoulder, “you know you love it.”

Kurt bristles at the word.

“Say it,” Sebastian continues, oblivious to the way Kurt’s insides are churning violently, turning ice cold. “Tell me you love it. You love me fucking you.”

Kurt turns his head slightly, takes a deep breath, and hopes for the best.

“I love _you_ ,” he says, and then waits quietly for whatever Sebastian can think of to say. When Sebastian stalls a minute too long, Kurt huffs and slithers out from beneath his body.

“Kurt…” Sebastian starts, preparing for an argument. “Kurt, don’t leave.”

“Why can’t you say it?” Kurt grabs for his clothes and dresses quickly. “I mean, I’ve heard you say you love your Porsche, you love your apartment, you love your grandmother’s apple pie…”

“It’s good pie,” Sebastian argues. He knows he sounds ridiculous, but he’s grasping at straws.

“So, you care about me less than your car, your apartment, and a slice of pie?” Kurt groans in disgust.

“No, Kurt, that’s not what…you’re putting words in my…” Sebastian stops short, trying to think of the right way to explain how he feels without setting Kurt off, but they’ve had this argument so many times before that he’s running out of ways to express it. In the end, he sighs, dropping his shoulders in defeat. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“I want you to tell me that you love me,” Kurt answers simply, concentrating on doing up the buttons of his shirt so he doesn’t burst into tears. “I want you to tell me I haven’t been wasting my time for the last year and a half, that you haven’t just been fucking me, that you see a future for us.”

“Kurt…” Sebastian crawls off the bed, catching Kurt before he bolts out the door, “you haven’t been wasting your time, we don’t just fuck, and yes, I see a future for us.”

Kurt’s head snaps up and he locks eyes with his reluctant boyfriend.

“Then tell me you love me.”

Sebastian opens his mouth, but shuts it again.

“That’s not fair,” Sebastian says flatly.

“You’re right,” Kurt answers back in the same monotone, “this isn’t fair.”

“I’m sorry, Kurt…” Sebastian rolls his head on his neck, grumbling in frustration. “You don’t understand.”

“Then, explain it to me,” Kurt pleads.

Sebastian hedges, shaking his head.

“I can’t…”

“Ugh!” Kurt exclaims. “This is so cliché! It’s like a fucking Michael Bay movie!”

“Wh…what does that even mean?” Sebastian asks in exasperation.

Kurt raises his eyebrows with contempt, as if the explanation is so completely obvious that Sebastian is a fool for not catching on.

“The ‘good guy can’t say I love you’ cliché,” Kurt says, angrily emphasizing the words with his fingers mimicking air quotes.

“Kurt, you’re not letting me finish.” Sebastian grabs Kurt around the waist, trying to bring his struggling boyfriend into his arms but not having much luck, “don’t go. Let’s…”

“Let’s what?” Kurt bites out. “Let’s fuck some more so I forget to be angry? Geez…” Kurt breaks free of Sebastian’s grasp and rushes for the door.

“Kurt!” Sebastian calls after him with such intensity that Kurt spins on his heel and stops short of reaching for the doorknob.

“What?” Kurt growls.

Sebastian stares at Kurt, sorrow and regret forming a dark cloud in his eyes.

“Don’t…don’t forget your coat,” he says, discontent souring his voice. “It’s cold outside.”

Kurt gasps, dumbfounded. Sebastian isn’t going to stop him. Kurt nearly tears his coat off the stand by the wall and runs out the door.

***

It’s one in the morning in Manhattan, and the whole city is still wide awake, but there’s nowhere that Kurt wants to go. He doesn’t want to be alone. He doesn’t want to go to the loft and get a lecture from Rachel. She wasn’t particularly supportive of his decision to date Sebastian in the first place. This little tidbit would just be fuel for the ‘I told you so’ fire. His brain switches to autopilot while he walks down several city blocks, thinking over his last conversation with Sebastian, wondering if it _should_ be their last, and ends up standing outside a bar that he knows better than he’d like to admit. In his defense, his knowledge of it is only because Santana works there part time on the weekends as a favor to a friend. He normally would walk right by, but this time he ducks in, finding he desperately needs an overpriced Shirley Temple and the comfort of a familiar face.

“Hey, Porcelain,” he hears Santana call out to him when he’s barely a foot through the door. Sometimes he thinks that she has a tracking device inserted under his skin somewhere since her ability to sense his presence seems to border on the paranormal. He laughs at the thought of Santana sneaking through his privacy curtain at night to inject a tiny GPS transmitter into his body. It wouldn’t be the strangest thing he’s caught her doing in the middle of the night.

Kurt raises a hand and waves politely. He scans the patrons seated at the bar and finds Brittany. She sticks out like a sore thumb among the slumped over, sullen-looking men and women slouching in their barstools, steadily sliding into their drinks. She has her blonde hair pulled tight to the top of her head in a ponytail, which bobs in time to the music playing from some old school relic jukebox in the corner. She taps her toes against the metal ring at the base of the stool and mouths the words to the current song filling the air – Madonna’s _Into the Groove_ \- while eating gherkins from a wooden bowl.

“You know, those are for the martinis,” Kurt says, sliding onto the stool beside her. “They’re not appetizers.”

“Santana says I can eat whatever I want as long as I eat it out of one of these little bowls,” Brittany informs him, sticking another sickly green mini-pickle in her mouth. Kurt turns his head before his queasy stomach gets any ideas. He’s never been very fond of pickles. He motions to the bartender.

“A Shirley Temple, please,” he says, trying to avoid watching Brittany stick the last of the pickles into her mouth.

“And can I have another chocolate egg cream?” Brittany asks when the bartender brings Kurt his drink, smiling blithely when the exhausted man behind the counter grunts in reply.

“You’re the only person I know who orders chocolate egg creams at a bar,” Kurt comments, taking a sip of his drink through a thinner-than-feasible red straw.

“And you’re the only person I know who goes out to a bar when you have sexy meerkat waiting for you at home,” she retorts, poking Kurt in the arm with one long, manicured fingernail. “Aren’t you two supposed to be on a date?”

“Yeah, well, that didn’t go so well.” Kurt stabs at a cherry with his straw, dunking the fruit into the carbonated drink and watching it float back up to the surface.

The bartender slides Brittany’s egg cream across the bar. She wraps her fingers around the glass with a cheery nod, focusing on the frothy drink so as not to intrude on Kurt’s thoughts.

“Did you…maybe want to talk about?” Brittany slurps at her drink, licking off the resulting foamy moustache from her upper lip.

Kurt weighs his choices. The great thing about talking to Brittany is that barely anything she says makes sense. He was really hoping to be regaled by stories of Lord Tubbington’s latest trip to rehab or something else equally inane to take his mind off his troubles. Talking his issues out would definitely be the better way to tackle them...but with Brittany?

Still, she offered, and what did he really have to lose? At worse, she would tell him a story about how Lord Tubbington overcame a similar obstacle through chain smoking and cheese fondue, so in essence he will have accomplished his original goal.

“Sebastian...won’t tell me that he loves me.” Kurt winces hearing it out loud. It sounds an awful lot like ‘I’m breaking up with my boyfriend’.

“Not yet?” Brittany says in surprise. “But you guys have been going out for, like, a year.”

“A year and a half,” he corrects her.

She looks thoughtful as she stirs her drink.

“Do you _think_ that he loves you?”

“Yes,” Kurt replies confidently; then immediately, doubt creeps in to his brain. “I guess. I don’t know.”

“I think he does.” Brittany hops a little on her bar stool to readjust her seat and dives back into her egg cream.

“I do, too,” Kurt says with more conviction, “it’s just, his motivations are kind of difficult to understand some times.” Kurt chuckles at that excuse. “ _He’s_ difficult to understand some times.”

“So are you,” Brittany says. “Especially when you get angry, you talk really fast and get all high pitchy…”

“I got it, I got it,” Kurt says, returning bitterly to his drink.

Brittany stares blankly off into the reflection of the mirror behind the bar, and for a second Kurt is sure he has lost her altogether. He sighs and picks up his glass, sipping the sugary concoction.

“Santana isn’t much for saying ‘I love you, either’,” she confesses suddenly in a voice so unlike her that it makes Kurt instantly stop and take notice. He turns to find her still staring into the reflection of the mirror, but he realizes he’s watching her girlfriend bounce from table to table behind them, delivering drinks and taking orders, snapping at some poor man about his paltry tip.

“Really?” Kurt says, knowing it sounds lame but not able to think of anything else to say.

“Yeah,” Brittany says, finally turning her attention to Kurt. “It kind of started when her grandma disowned her.”

“I remember that.” Kurt leans in, genuinely interested. “Whatever happened with that?”

Brittany shrugs, stirring her drink and smiling when the ice hits the side of the glass with a gentle clink.

“She doesn’t talk about it, so I don’t ask, but I don’t think her grandma ever forgave her.”

“Not that there was anything to forgive,” Kurt reminds her.

Brittany nods.

“I know, but that’s the way her grandma saw it.” Brittany stops stirring to take a sip before she speaks again. “Anyway, I think she feels that those words don’t mean anything. I mean, her grandma used to tell her she loved her all the time. If she loved her so much, how could she just cut her out of her life the way she did?”

Kurt stares, mouth agape, surprised by how much of what Brittany said makes sense.

“So…” Kurt encourages, wanting her to continue.

“So, maybe Sebastian has something like that in his life,” she deduces. “Maybe someone important turned their back on him and made those words meaningless.”

Kurt thinks about that, watching as Brittany’s eyes drift back to the mirror to look at Santana. Santana turns and catches her gaze, smiling and winking back.

“So, how do you know?” Kurt asks.

“How do I know what?” Brittany pulls a face in the mirror, and Kurt hears Santana laugh from somewhere behind his right shoulder.

“How do you know that Santana loves you?” Kurt rolls his eyes.

“Oh, well, because she makes me breakfast, she buys me little gifts, she makes sure I have my jacket when it’s cold out…”

That last one hits a nerve as Kurt remembers the last thing Sebastian yelled out to him as he stormed out of the apartment.

_“Don’t…don’t forget your coat…”_

“That’s how you know?” Kurt mutters in disbelief.

“Sure,” Brittany chirps. “There’s a million ways to tell someone you love them, you just have to learn to hear them.”

Kurt feels an unexpectedly strong hand clamp down on his shoulder, and he jumps, turning on his stool to face a smirking Santana. Her usually taunting eyes gaze at him softly, as if she had somehow heard every word of his and Brittany’s conversation, but other than that, she lets on nothing.

“If you don’t mind, Lady Face,” Santana interrupts, wrapping an arm around Brittany’s waist and pulling her off her barstool, “I’m on my break, and I needs to get my lady kisses on.”

Kurt rolls his eyes and shoos the two away with a wave of his hand. He watches them stumble arm-in-arm out the back entrance, giggling and whispering with temples pressed close together. Brittany rests her head against Santana’s shoulder and they disappear into the alley. Kurt watches them until the door shuts behind them. He sighs.

He misses his boyfriend.

A rather large, rather unpleasant smelling gentleman occupies the now vacant stool, smiling at Kurt dopily with a disturbing, gapped-tooth grin; Kurt’s clue to find a new place to sit. He picks up his drink and heads for one of the empty tables in a more secluded corner. He sets his drink down and sits carefully in the questionable-looking chair. He rests his head in his hands and turns his attention back to his drink, contemplating the cherries floating in the glass in front of him with Brittany’s words bouncing back and forth in his head.

_She makes me breakfast…she buys me little gifts…she makes sure I have my jacket when it’s cold out…_

Kurt mulls over the day…the last few days…the last few months, and all the things Sebastian does for him; things that he’s ashamed to admit he often takes for granted.

Sebastian picks up Kurt’s dry cleaning every Tuesday afternoon after work without being asked. He makes brunch every Sunday. He buys sterling roses for Kurt’s loft every week. He says it’s to take the smell of poverty out of the place, but he also knows they happen to be Kurt’s favorites. Sterling roses are not an easy flower to find, even in the city. When Kurt’s sick, he brings him soup and watches _Moulin Rouge_ with Kurt. Granted, Sebastian usually falls asleep long before Christian and Satine ever make it to the elephant for the first time, but that doesn’t really matter.

The more Kurt thinks about it, the more he realizes that those are just the top block of a pyramid that extends past the day when they first decided to officially become boyfriends. It includes dinners at restaurants Kurt could only ever dream of going to, late nights lying out on a blanket on the roof of Sebastian’s apartment so that Kurt could see the stars (pretty much the only thing he missed about Lima, Ohio), Skype calls that lasted for hours, arguments over what movie they were going to watch with Kurt winning out more times than not, and more unsolicited non-fat mochas than Kurt can count.

“Hey,” a tentative voice weeds its way into Kurt’s thoughts. Kurt smiles to himself at the sound of the one voice he wanted to hear more than anything else.

“How did you know I was here?”

“An obnoxious friend sent me a text message when you got here,” Sebastian says, searching the bar quickly for the friend in question.

“Ahh.” Kurt taps at a cherry, watching it bob up and down.

“I would have been here earlier, but I thought I’d give you some space.”

Kurt chews on the inside of his cheek as he thinks of a way to respond.

“Is this seat taken, or are you waiting for someone?”

Kurt turns his head to look at Sebastian, hovering by the chair with questioning, hopeful eyes.

“I was kind of hoping that this guy I know would show up,” Kurt says. “I was a jerk to him earlier, and…”

“No…” Sebastian sits, taking Kurt’s hand in both of his. “Kurt, I…”

“Shh…” Kurt puts a hand up to Sebastian’s lips to stop him, sliding onto his lap and wrapping an arm around him. “You don’t have to say anything. I’m sorry I overreacted.”

“No, babe…” Sebastian shakes his head, taking Kurt’s hand with the fingertips still pressed against his lips and kissing them gently. “You’re right. I owe you…”

“You don’t owe me anything,” Kurt persists, but Sebastian continues to shake his head.

“Please, let me explain,” Sebastian pleads, looking up at Kurt with the saddest expression of remorse Kurt has ever seen, and he nods.

“My mom and dad…they used to say ‘I love you’ a lot,” Sebastian begins. “Especially my dad…”

Kurt can’t help the confused and maybe slightly annoyed expression that takes over his face. Kurt was expecting emotional neglect, a lifetime of disdain. Considering everything Brittany said, all those reasons that made so much sense, Sebastian’s admission definitely wasn’t what he was expecting.

“Then why…”

“But, it didn’t mean anything,” Sebastian rushes to continue. “My dad would cheat on my mom, and he would say ‘I love you’ to make it all better. My mom would ridicule my dad, and she would say ‘I love you’, and that was supposed to fix everything. They both missed out on everything – lacrosse games, choir competitions, graduation…”

Kurt feels his heart crush as he listens. Kurt’s dad went to everything – ballet recitals, all his football games, every choir competition he could. Nothing short of death would have kept Burt Hummel from his son’s graduation, and even that might have been negotiable.

“I learned at a very young age that saying ‘I love you’ to another human being wasn’t the powerful, magical, meaningful words that fairytales and romance novels make you believe they are.” Sebastian takes a deep breath and kisses Kurt’s fingers one more time. “It’s just a way to get what you want.”

Kurt follows the path of Sebastian’s eyes as they travel down to Kurt’s hand on his lap.

“H-have you ever told another man you loved him?” Kurt asks.

“Yes,” Sebastian answers sheepishly, not looking up to see the hurt in Kurt’s eyes, “but not because I meant it.”

“Then why?”

“Because I knew it would get me what I wanted,” Sebastian runs his fingers lightly over the material of Kurt’s jeans.

“And did it?” Kurt’s voice gets smaller with every question he asks.

Sebastian sweeps his eyes away toward the table, Kurt’s drink, the other patrons in the bar.

“Yes,” he says, staring off in the direction of the bar. “Yes, it did.”

Kurt blinks away the hurt, wanting to be more supportive.

“And then what happened?” he asks, finding his voice again.

Sebastian bites his lip and finds the strength to look at Kurt full in the face.

“Afterward I felt horrible,” Sebastian admits with a mirthless laugh. "Repulsive, actually.”

“What did you do about it?”

Kurt rests his forehead against Sebastian’s, much in the same way Brittany and Santana did when they left the bar, catching Sebastian’s gaze so he wouldn’t look away.

“I fessed up. Broke it off with him. Never spoke to him again.”

Kurt feels Sebastian’s hand tighten around his, and Kurt lifts it to his lips to kiss his knuckles. They sit, huddled together, wrapped around each other, regardless of a few jeers aimed their way.

“Do you believe that I love you?” Sebastian says so softly, it’s almost a whisper.

Kurt bobs his head up and down, reluctant to move away from Sebastian to answer.

“Yeah…” he says finally, unconvincingly. “I’d like to think you do.”

“Oh, Kurt, I do.” Sebastian throws his arms around Kurt’s waist and holds him tight. “Of course, I do. You know I do.” Sebastian looks at Kurt’s face and frowns. “No…I guess you don’t know, huh?”

“Yeah, I do. You show me all the time.”

“But that’s not enough,” Sebastian says, dropping his head. “You deserve someone who can say the words, whenever you want them to. You deserve to hear it.”

Kurt toys with an idea in his head, something he remembers from an old television show he and his dad used to watch after his mother died, when ‘I love you’ became almost tired from overuse, but had to be said constantly because they never knew which day would be the last.

“Maybe we can come up with our own words,” Kurt suggests. “You know, like a secret code that only we know.”

Sebastian flicks his eyes up and smirks, his whole face lighting up with the familiar half-smile that Kurt loves.

“Should we get secret decoder rings, too?” Sebastian teases, pinching Kurt on the knee.

“I’m serious,” Kurt says, kissing Sebastian on the tip of his nose when his smile threatens to fall. “We don’t have to say ‘I love you’. We can come up with something all our own.”

“Like what?” Sebastian runs his hands up Kurt’s legs, sliding one hand in between his thighs, making Kurt squirm in his lap.

“I don’t know…” Kurt closes his eyes and bites his lip when Sebastian’s fingers travel further up his leg. “You pick something. Make it something that only we’ll understand.”

“Okay…” Sebastian pecks a few well-placed kisses down Kurt’s neck, feeling the desired effect beneath his fingertips, “how about, ‘Do you have Prince Albert in a can?’”

Kurt throws his head back and laughs, but when he looks back at Sebastian, his boyfriend only wiggles his eyebrows.

“You’re serious?” Kurt asks. Sebastian nods once, massaging Kurt’s thigh with firm strokes of his strong fingers.

“Okay then,” Kurt agrees. “’Do you have Prince Albert in a can?’ it is.”

“Hey, lovebirds,” Brittany giggles, dragging Santana over, balancing one-handed a tray full of cocktails that she sets on the table.

“Okay, bitches…” Santana pulls out a chair for Brittany who sits daintily in it with a soft ‘thank you’, “if you’re done fondling each other over here, can we talk about what we’re going to do with the rest of the evening?”

“Evening?” Kurt objects, glancing down at his watch for the time. “It’s nearly three in the morning!”

“Yes,” Santana drawls, sitting beside Brittany and draping an arm over her girlfriend’s shoulder, “I just got off my shift and I’m ready to gets my party on, so what are we going to do now? And before you even say a word, meerkat, we’re not going to that dive with the perma-foam on the dance floor.”

“What do you have against a little foam?” Sebastian asks, squeezing Kurt tight.

“Nothing, except it’s just an excuse for you and your boy-toy here to have sex in public.”

“That’s what they were doing?” Brittany asks, looking from one face to the other. Sebastian snickers into Kurt’s shoulder at the blank look on Brittany’s face.

Kurt shakes his head and turns to his laughing boyfriend. Sebastian stops laughing when he feels Kurt’s intense gaze on him. Kurt fixes Sebastian with the most seductive smolder he can muster.

“Do you have Prince Albert in a can?” he says smoothly, as if it’s the most normal comment in the world.

Sebastian smiles.

“I do,” Sebastian whispers back. “Do you?”

“I do,” Kurt says, leaning in to plant a small, delicate kiss to Sebastian’s lips. “I totally do.”

Santana crinkles her nose, supremely confused, but Brittany puts a hand on her girlfriend’s knee and sighs, leaning into her side.

“They are _so_ in love.”


	104. Not the Happily Ever After I Had Planned

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ikurtstanthings on tumblr posted that she wanted a fic where Kurt leaves Blaine at the altar and the only explanation that he gets is a list of pros and cons handed to him by Sam with a hundred reasons listed in the con column. I couldn’t find the original post, so here’s what I wrote. It’s not lol, but I hope you all like it. (Warning for mention of Blaine and Klaine.)

Kurt lifted his head away from the toilet, where he had spent the last twenty minutes losing his breakfast, lunch, and dinner. ‘ _How cliché was this?’_ he thought bitterly, flushing the toilet and struggling to get to his feet. Trapped in his hotel room, exactly one an hour before the big ‘I do’, and Kurt was sicker than he had ever been in his life.

But he didn’t have cold feet. He had a complete and debilitating case of claustrophobia.

It wasn’t his room. The Anderson’s had sprung for one of the grandest suites at this hotel. It was his life closing in on him, strangling him, starting from the day on the Dalton staircase when he had accepted Blaine’s proposal and getting tighter by the second ever since.

Kurt could settle. He could go through with it and hope that things got better. Isn’t that what everyone always said? It gets better? He loved Blaine once. He could learn to love him again.

That might actually work, if it weren’t for Sebastian.

Sebastian who watched, heartbroken, while Blaine proposed and Kurt said yes.

Sebastian who quietly pined for Kurt from afar for the last five years.

Sebastian who hunted Kurt down months before the wedding and laid out all his feelings, pledged his love for Kurt, a love that despite how hard he tried, how much he drank, how many men he fucked, he just couldn’t seem to shake.

Sebastian who Kurt couldn’t stop thinking of from that day on.

They met in secret, dined in private, got to know one another all over again. They drank coffee in out of the way places in the city, chanced the occasional movie, and a few times even went dancing.

As time went by Kurt realized that all of those things he missed in Blaine, all of those things he always thought Blaine could be again, already existed in Sebastian.

But Kurt was caged, committed. He had made a promise that he felt wasn’t so easy to break. Plans had been made, set into motion, and Kurt couldn’t call it all off now…could he?

It was a question he still hadn’t answered and last night, while Blaine went out with Sam and Artie, presumably to some strip club that Kurt wasn’t told about, Sebastian came to Kurt’s suite, imploring him one final time to break it off with Blaine.

“But…but you don’t even think you love him!” Sebastian had screamed, grabbing at his own hair in frustration.

“I…don’t know what I want,” Kurt admitted, his eyes red from crying, his voice barely audible from arguing with Sebastian for over an hour. “I’m confused.”

“Okay,” Sebastian, stopped his endless pacing and dropped to his knees in front of Kurt where he sat on the edge of the king-sized bed, “okay, don’t focus on what you want. What about what you need?”

Kurt looked into Sebastian’s face, green eyes imploring him to see reason not before it was too late. He was speechless. His lips moved, trying to explain, but he couldn’t figure out where to start.

“Kurt?” Sebastian whispered, his voice heavy with desperation. “I love you and you love me. Isn’t that all that we need?”

Kurt couldn’t answer. Tears fell in earnest down his cheeks, but he simply shook his head, at a complete loss for words, any words.

Sebastian sighed. He felt drained. He pulled an envelope out of his pocket and laid it on the bed beside Kurt.

“I can’t stay in the city without you,” he confessed softly. “Knowing that you and Blaine are together, as husbands, I just…I just can’t.” Sebastian took Kurt’s hands and held them along with Kurt’s eyes. “But if you want to come with me…” He nodded to the envelope on the bed. “That’s a train ticket. My train leaves at noon. And I hope…”

Sebastian couldn’t finish. He kissed Kurt’s knuckles, closing his eyes for a moment to breathe him in, and then rose to his feet and left without looking back.

Kurt wanted to follow. He wanted to chase after him and beg him not to go, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t make himself move. He couldn’t make himself do anything but feel, and his feelings were crushing him from the inside.

Kurt collapsed on the bed beside the ticket and cried; loud, ugly sobs that shook his whole body, shook the bed beneath him, leaving him tired and gasping for breath.

At some point he got up to get a tissue. He walked to the vanity on the opposite side of the room and caught a glimpse of his wrecked face in the mirror. He grimaced. He looked awful.

He sat on the small covered stool in front of him and opened the vanity drawer, searching through his moisturizers and exfoliators for a packet of tissues. He found one supplied by the hotel, and underneath it was a stationary set consisting of a notepad and a pen. Kurt took them out and set them on the vanity. He blew his nose indignantly, staring thoughtfully at the blank page.

Kurt glanced at his watch, sitting on the vanity with the face clearly visible. It was ten o’clock. He had twelve hours until I do, and before then he vowed he would sort out his feelings. He would write them down, get them out, and then be done with them. He decided to write a list, like his mother had taught him. He would start with the pros and cons of marrying Blaine, and then the pros and cons of leaving with Sebastian, and whoever’s list of pros were longer…well, he would cross that bridge when he came to it.

Kurt started with Blaine, folding the paper in half and dividing it into two equal sides. On the top, in big block letters, he wrote ‘BLAINE’. Beneath that, he titled the columns ‘PROS’ and ‘CONS’.

Starting was easier than he thought, though admittedly he started with the ‘con’ side first, since those reasons seemed to leap quickly to mind. He wrote and wrote, tears starting and stopping every now and then. He felt schizophrenic after a while. He would remember something blithe, something beautiful, and smile, but then immediately he would think of something heartbreaking and vile, and break into tears. He wrote until the cheap, free pen ran out of ink, and he had to go to his luggage to get one of his own. He finished the list, lying on the bedspread of his bed, where he fell asleep with one arm tucked beneath his head and the list clutched firmly in his hand.

***

Kurt rose from the bathroom floor and stumbled into his room. The first thing he saw was his tuxedo waiting for him. He walked up to it, ran his fingertips down the lapels of the Armani tux, and sighed.

 _‘What a beautifully made straightjacket,’_ he thought grimly.

His eyes drifted to the vanity and the tear stained, crumpled list of ‘pros’ and ‘cons’. With only thirty minutes left, he had a life-changing choice to make.

He only hoped he was making the right one.

***

Blaine fidgeted nervously with the cuffs of his tuxedo, surreptitiously peeking at his watch, trying not to show on his face how worried he was. His eyes swept the rows of guests, all staring at him expectantly, ready to share in what should be one of the happiest days of his life, all aware that the groom was already fifteen minutes late.

Kurt hadn’t been quite the same ever since Sebastian dropped in out of the blue to visit so many months ago. Blaine wondered if Kurt was still upset about everything that had happened between them in high school, probably anxious that Sebastian’s moving to the city meant another assault on their relationship, but Blaine had assured Kurt time and time again that he didn’t want Sebastian or Eli or Sam or anyone else.

He only had eyes for Kurt.

Blaine heard the opening chords of the wedding march playing on the organ – cheesy, he knew, but his mother had insisted – and his entire body relaxed. He turned along with the rest of the room to watch his soon-to-be-husband walk down the aisle, eager to get the first look at the gorgeous man he would be spending his life with.

But instead of the prince Blaine had expected, a red-faced Sam hurried down the aisle, straight for him, a blank expression on his face and a plain white envelope in his hand.

“What--?” Blaine muttered, confused, reaching out for the envelope that Sam was handing to him. It had his name written on it in Kurt’s flowery handwriting.

Sam offered Blaine no explanation. He simply shook his head.

Blaine felt his entire body go cold. He tore open the envelope, ripping it nearly in half. He reached into the tear and pulled out a slip of paper, accompanied by something heavy falling to the floor with a thud. Sam bent over to pick up whatever had fallen while Blaine read the note.

Except it wasn’t a note. It was a list. Pros and cons with his name written at the top. The pros column was almost blank but the cons went on and on to the other side of the page, the print becoming smaller as Kurt tried to squeeze more into the limited space, each offense numbered.

Kurt had stopped at one hundred.

In the margin, Kurt wrote a brief message.

_Blaine –_

_I could have kept going, so now I have to go._

_I’m sorry._

_Kurt_

Blaine looked the page over front and back again, shaking in his hands. He felt Sam nudge his shoulder and he looked up at his best friend with watery eyes. Sam held his hand out to him, palm faced up.

“I’m sorry, man,” he said sympathetically.

In the center of his palm sat Kurt’s engagementring _._

***

Sebastian stared out the window at the passengers boarding the train, picking out people in the crowd and following their progression from the platform to the doors – a mother with her toddler son in tow, fumbling to fold a cumbersome looking stroller and stow it underneath the train; a stooped-over elderly woman, about fifty years older than God, bidding farewell to her family gathered around her, some weeping, probably wondering if this would be the last time they saw each other again; a woman in a Naval uniform with a duffle at her feet, kissing her crying girlfriend good-bye.

There were no familiar faces there to see him off, though. No one crying at his departure.

No one who cared to say good-bye.

Sebastian started rummaging through his satchel, looking for his Kindle, hoping to while away the hours with his newly downloaded copy of _Updike_ , when he heard someone take the seat beside him. He groaned quietly, but didn’t look up. He knew the train would most likely be crowded, but he had hoped he might luck out and get away with sitting beside an unoccupied seat.

“Well, excuse me,” an amused voice scolded him, “if you really want to sit by yourself, I can find another seat.”

Sebastian rolled his eyes, about to make a snide remark, but it lodged in his throat.

He knew that voice.

It triggered something in his brain that sent messages all throughout his body.

That message – his life was about to become a thousand times better.

“You came,” Sebastian said, raising his gaze from the contents of his bag to meet the smiling eyes of the man sitting beside him, backpack clutched in his lap, pinching his lower lip between his teeth.

“Yup,” Kurt said with a single nod. “I came.”

“But…but what about Blaine?” Sebastian sputtered.

“If I remember correctly, he wasn’t invited.”

Sebastian dropped his bag to the floor and grabbed Kurt’s coat, pulling him into his arms, holding him tight to make sure he wasn’t an illusion.

“I hoped, but never thought you would actually come,” Sebastian whispered into Kurt’s neck, squeezing his eyes shut.

“Do you still love me?” Kurt asked. He knew the answer, but he liked to hear it.

“Of course, I do,” Sebastian said. “You know I do.”

“Good,” Kurt said, sighing. A sharp whistle sounded, warning the people on the platform to step back away from the train. It lurched forward, and with a few slow chugs, they started to roll away. Kurt tried to pull away to look into Sebastian’s eyes, but Sebastian wouldn’t let him go. Kurt chuckled and melted further into his arms. “I do love you, and that’s all I really need.”


	105. A Very Important Lesson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the Kurtbastian Hiatus Project. Warning for age difference, but not underage, language, sexual situations. Sebastian Smythe is the principal of Dalton Academy, and Kurt is a new transfer student with a huge crush on him.

“Principal Smythe?” the high nasally voice of Patricia, Sebastian’s portly receptionist, called over the intercom. “Mr. Kurt Hummel is here to see you.”

Sebastian took a deep breath in and let it out slowly, closing his eyes and clearing his head. It took a lot of mental preparation for Sebastian to deal with Kurt, and Sebastian had to deal with him every…damn…day.

Kurt Elizabeth Hummel – a senior, and Dalton’s most recent transfer student from McKinley High. Dalton didn’t have many mid-year transfer students this semester, but out of the seven they had gotten, Kurt was unlike any of them. In fact, with his purple hair and his piercings, he wasn’t the typical Dalton student.

Sebastian didn’t get the chance to meet Kurt his first week of school since he was at a conference in Cincinnati, but he heard all about the precocious young man the minute he stepped foot back in his office that following Monday. Apparently, Kurt had been too much for the vice principal to handle.

After Sebastian returned, she immediately went on vacation.

Kurt had managed to find a way around most of the school’s rules, including exploiting several political statutes and culturally exclusive loopholes that allowed him to keep his violet-colored locks and row of cartilage piercings regardless of the fact that they were in direct violation of the school dress code.

Intrigued by the stories he heard featuring Dalton’s newest cynic from both students and staff, Sebastian called Kurt out of class and in to his office, which might have been his biggest mistake. From the moment Kurt laid his glasz eyes on Principal Smythe, he would not leave him alone. Sebastian had had his fair share of students crushing on him before. Being one of the youngest principals in Dalton history probably didn’t help much on that account. But Kurt was different. He was positively relentless. He tried everything possible to get Sebastian alone. Without a vice principal to delegate Kurt’s discipline to, Sebastian came up with creative ways to deal with Kurt so that he didn’t have to handle the boy personally, but Kurt was shrewd, even for a teenager. He combed the Dalton rule book, identifying all the infractions that he had to break in order to force the principal to deal with him, and yet not get him kicked out of school.

Kurt definitely had an attitude problem, but that wasn’t the issue that got him transferred. Kurt’s father had opted to send him to Dalton because of their zero-tolerance bullying policy. Kurt had apparently been slammed into lockers and tossed into dumpsters at McKinley for being gay (a fact that Kurt made a point to emphasize with a smile and a coy flash of his tongue piercing the first time he ever spoke to Sebastian). After three plus years of watching his son turn from a straight-laced, shy young man with aspirations of becoming a big-name Broadway star to a pierced, ripped jean and leather wearing hooligan, leader of a gang called ‘The Skanks’, Burt Hummel had had enough. He knew he needed to keep his son safe and put him back on the right track toward his future.

Sebastian was sure the man hadn’t counted on the tremendous crush that would turn his A-plus son swiftly into a D-minus student.

Sebastian had spent more time talking with Kurt in the last month and a half than he had with his own fiancé…well, ex-fiancé now, and that was part of Sebastian’s problem.

Sebastian was vulnerable, and Kurt happened to be his type. On the surface, Sebastian scolded Kurt for his constant flirting and inappropriate comments, but each and every time he heard Kurt’s voice, it lit a fire in his stomach. Kurt appealed far too strongly to the spurned teenager still lingering deep inside Sebastian’s brain – the bitter eighteen-year-old he had been, who sold fake ID’s on campus, and fucked boys like Kurt in the bathroom of nightclubs and bars.

But Sebastian wasn’t a teenager anymore. He was a grown man, and in some incredible stroke of luck, Kurt appealed to that side of him, too. The few times Sebastian had gotten Kurt to open up to him – really, honestly open up - he had seen past the boy with the purple hair and the piercings to the well-spoken, intelligent, creative man he was becoming. Sebastian found he was attracted to that man, too…exceedingly so.

“Principal Smythe?” the voice over the intercom repeated.

Sebastian opened his eyes. His moment of peace gone, it was time to confront his adversary, and as exhausting as it sounded, he couldn’t help the smirk that curled the edges of his lips thinking about it.

“Let him in,” Sebastian said.

The door opened, and a more understated version of Dalton’s one and only Skank entered his office. Sebastian had noticed subtle changes in Kurt’s dress as of late. The bright violet in his hair was a more muted deep purple, and Sebastian wasn’t too sure but he thought Kurt might be missing the hoops he normally wore in the shells of his ears. Sebastian knew for certain that his eyebrow ring had gone suspiciously absent for over a week, and he couldn’t help but wonder if maybe, just maybe, Kurt was changing his look because he thought it would appeal to him.

It warmed Sebastian’s heart. He would never want Kurt to change for any man, but it was still flattering.

“Hello, Sebastian,” Kurt said with a sly grin as he passed by and took the seat in front of his desk.

“Kurt,” Sebastian said sternly, “we talked about this. I am your principal. Call me Principal Smythe.”

“I’m sorry,” Kurt said, putting his bag on the floor and throwing a hand up in front of his face, pretending to be mortified. “Whatever you prefer, of course, _Principal Smythe_.”

Sebastian swallowed hard as he sat, pulling his chair in quickly and trying to hide the way it affected him when Kurt called him _Principal Smythe_ in that teasing tone of voice.

“Do you know why you’re here today?” Sebastian folded his hands on his desk, his face serious, his gaze locked on to Kurt’s eyes, focusing on remaining impassive as Kurt toyed with the barbell in his tongue.

“Because you enjoy the pleasure of my company?” Kurt crossed his legs right over left and sat up, prim and straight. Sebastian’s eyes flicked to Kurt’s long legs for a second, following them as they moved, and then back to Kurt’s eyes, which shimmered with hidden laughter.

Sebastian knew he had been caught looking.

He stood and began to pace behind his desk. He faced the far walls on each pass, giving himself something else to stare at other than Kurt’s legs.

“You’re here because Mrs. Forsythe informs me that you’re failing French.”

“I know.” Kurt dropped his head, attempting to appear repentant. “I’ve been struggling. It’s just so…it’s just so difficult…” Kurt sniffled for added emphasis. “I need…” Kurt raised his hooded eyes to meet Sebastian’s gaze “…guidance.”

Sebastian looked once, then turned his eyes away, shaking his head.

“I don’t think you need help,” Sebastian said, trying to call Kurt’s bluff.

“Of course I need help,” Kurt stated innocently, all trace of amusement expertly veiled. “I’ve gone through five tutors in the two months since I’ve been here. I failed the last three exams. _You’re_ the French academic advisor. It’s your job to tutor me as a last resort. So…” Kurt uncrossed his legs, opened them wide, and then re-crossed them again with the left leg over the right this time “…tutor me.”

“I think you failed those tests on purpose,” Sebastian deduced, pushing the image of Kurt’s legs…and his crotch…out of his mind.

“Now, why would I do that?” Kurt batted his eyes, keeping up the act.

“I think you’re looking for attention,” Sebastian said. “I think you’re looking for attention from me.”

A small smirk slipped on to Kurt’s face. “I swear, Principal Smythe,” he pleaded unconvincingly, “I desperately need help. If I fail this class, Mrs. Forsythe is going to make you _hold me back_.”  

The last three words were a purr past Kurt’s lips.

“Sorry” - Sebastian returned to his desk and opened a manila file folder lying there - “but I’m not buying that.”

“You haven’t heard me speak French yet” - Kurt paused to bite his lower lip - “so how do you know what I can do?”

Sebastian tried to ignore the provocative way Kurt pinched his lip between his teeth and flipped through the pages of the file until he found what he was looking for. He turned the folder to face Kurt, tapping at a passage of handwritten words at the bottom of the page.

“Because your last French teacher wrote on your transcript, and I quote, “Kurt Hummel is an exceptionally talented linguist with a near perfect accent, and speaks French like a native.””

Kurt waved a hand dismissively in front of his face.

“A public high school teacher,” Kurt said, sounding like a perfect snob. “You know as well as I do, Principal Smythe, that the curriculum here is much, much _harder_.”

Sebastian would have rolled his eyes at the obvious and childish innuendo if he wasn’t using every ounce of mental strength he had to keep his interested cock from making an untimely appearance.

“Kurt…” Sebastian planted both hands on his desk and leaned forward slightly, fixing Kurt with his severest gaze “…we’ve discussed your inappropriate behavior before, haven’t we?”

Kurt stood up, planted his hands in front of Sebastian’s on his desk and leaned in close enough for Sebastian to feel his breath ghost over his lips, tickling the tip of his tongue.

“Am I behaving inappropriately?” Kurt asked, his voice guileless but his lips wearing that same, sly smirk from before. “I thought I was here discussing the status of my academic future.”

“You know what I mean.” Sebastian pushed off the desk and stood up straight, needing to put some space between them before he seriously started to consider taking Kurt right there, bent over his desk.

Jesus! If he did, he’d never be able to sit at that desk without a massive hard-on again.

“Let’s just say, for argument’s sake, that I _do_ know what you’re implying,” Kurt started, slowly walking around the desk and pursuing Sebastian as he made his way to the other side of the room. “Would it be a bad thing? I mean, you’re super-hot…I think I’m kind of hot…and we _are_ both adults…”

Sebastian scoffed. He wasn’t going to simply take Kurt’s word for it that he was eighteen.

Luckily, Kurt’s file, still opened on Sebastian’s desk, left no doubts. Kurt definitely was eighteen. A legal adult.

Sebastian may have triple-checked.

So maybe fucking him would be immoral, but not illegal.

Hell, if Kurt knew all of the Dalton loopholes (and Sebastian knew he did), then he knew that Sebastian wouldn’t even lose his job for dating a student as long as the student was a consenting adult, and as long as they didn’t fraternize on campus.

With every step Kurt took closer, Sebastian felt his resolve slipping.

“Come on, _Principal Smythe_ ,” Kurt teased, fixated on breaking through Sebastian’s barriers, which he could tell he was from the way Sebastian’s muscular shoulders tensed, to his hands flexing in the air, balling into fists and then relaxing again. “I’ve seen the way you look at me when you think no one else is watching…” Kurt’s voice dropped to a low, velvety whisper. It washed over Sebastian’s body and chipped away even further at his already waning self-control.

“I don’t look at you any differently than I do the other students at Dalton,” Sebastian argued, staring at the wall ahead of him, his voice fighting to stay steady.

“Oh?” Kurt laughed, inching closer. “So I take it you want to fuck every student at Dalton?”

“I don’t want to fuck you,” Sebastian growled. He turned around, preparing to walk back across the room to his desk, but Kurt was suddenly there behind him, crowding him in.

“I don’t believe that,” Kurt said with a giggle. “I don’t believe that at all.”

Kurt put a hand on Sebastian’s arm, but Sebastian shrugged it off.

“Why are you doing this?” Sebastian asked, grabbing Kurt by the shoulders and pushing him away, holding him at arm’s distance. “Don’t you want to find a nice boy your own age who will love and respect you?”

“I don’t want a _boy_ , I want a _man_ ,” Kurt informed him. “And what? You don’t think you can love and respect me?” Kurt leaned over and captured one of Sebastian’s fingers between his lips. He sucked it into his mouth and swirled around it suggestively with his tongue. Sebastian tore his hand away, biting his lip hard to kill his erection…with no luck.

“Kurt, I’m going to tell you this one last time, as your teacher…” Sebastian saw something flash in Kurt’s eyes, something cold and hard, something close to pain “…as your friend…” he continued, his voice going softer. “You need to stop.”

“Stop?” Kurt lifted his hands and ran them up Sebastian’s arms. “But I’ve just gotten started.”

Sebastian closed his eyes, willing himself to stay strong.

“I hear the way the other teachers talk about you,” Kurt went on, breaking free from Sebastian’s grip and stepping into his embrace. “I heard that you were a punk yourself in high school, and quite the stud, too.” Kurt’s voice became a whisper against Sebastian’s neck. “I heard you liked them _young_ …”

Kurt’s lips connected to Sebastian’s skin, and something inside Sebastian came undone. He was losing control of the situation. Sebastian had promised himself after Noel broke off their engagement that he would never allow someone else to control him again. Sebastian wouldn’t mind a relationship with Kurt, but not like this. Kurt deserved more than a quick fuck in the principal’s office, and so did Sebastian.

But Kurt wasn’t listening.

Sebastian would have to find a way to make him listen.

Sebastian spun Kurt around and shoved him up against the wall, grabbing his wrists and pinning them to the wood behind him, one on each side of his head. Kurt whimpered at the rough treatment, but that whimper turned into a wavering moan when Sebastian ran his nose down the column of Kurt’s neck and pressed against him with his body.

“Is this what you want?” Sebastian groaned, squeezing Kurt’s wrists harder until he knew it would hurt a little. “Is this really how you want your first time? Up against a wall in the principal’s office?”

Kurt scoffed, an indignant noise that sounded more embarrassed than offended.

“Who says this is my first time?” Kurt grumbled defiantly. He pushed against Sebastian’s hands, but they were locked on his wrists like iron shackles.

Sebastian looked into Kurt’s blue eyes and grinned cruelly.

“You forget, I was a punk in high school, like you said. Just like you…” Sebastian bounced is head back and forth as he looked Kurt over. “Well, you minus the purple hair.”

“So you think I’m a virgin because _you_ were a virgin in high school?” Kurt jeered, sure that he’d gotten the upper hand.

“Nope,” Sebastian said. “Not by a long shot. But I could spot one from a mile away. Still can.” Sebastian chuckled. “And you’ve got it written _all_ over you, Kurt. Otherwise, why would you need to try so hard?”

Kurt gasped, his entire body freezing beneath the heat of Sebastian pressing against him, his lust-blown eyes watering from the depths of his humiliation. He turned his head to the side, his pale cheeks flaring so red that Sebastian thought they might burst into flame.

When Kurt could finally make himself speak, his voice sounded small and tight.

“Fine,” he said. His hands became dead weight in Sebastian’s grasp and Sebastian let go, letting Kurt’s arms drop to his sides. “I give up. Just give me my damn pass and I won’t bother you again.”

Kurt brushed past Sebastian and headed for his desk. He grabbed his book bag off the floor and dropped down into the stiff leather chair. Holding his bag protectively in his lap, he kept his eyes trained on the toes of his Docs (also not part of the dress code, but Sebastian could let that slide).

Sebastian returned to his own chair and straightened his dress shirt, regarding the defeated boy in front of him. Peel away all the posturing and false bravado, and Kurt was just a kid – scared, insecure, and struggling to find his place in the world. A world that had already tried to beat him down several times before.

It made Sebastian’s heart hurt.

He could use the excuse that, as an educator, he couldn’t ignore a student in pain, but that wasn’t the only reason.

Sebastian cared about Kurt too much.

Sebastian sat in his chair and pulled out a pad of hall passes from his desk drawer. Kurt remained quiet as Sebastian filled one out, tore it from the pad, and handed it across the desk to him. Kurt plucked it from Sebastian’s fingers, careful not to touch him, and clutched it in his fist.

“Now that that’s settled,” Sebastian said evenly, “there’s still the matter of your failing grade in French.”

“So what do I do about that?” Kurt asked, sullen, with the pass disintegrating steadily in his hand.

“I’ve decided to enroll you in our incentives program,” Sebastian said.

Kurt’s nose scrunched, his brow furrowing in confusion. “Incentives program?” he asked. “What incentives program?”

“Kurt, I happen to think you’re an incredibly smart and gifted young man,” Sebastian said, writing another note on a piece of his personal stationary, “so here’s what we’re going to do - you stop the theatrics here at school, you re-take all three exams and bring up your grade in French…”

Kurt’s eyebrows raised, his cheeks coloring again from Sebastian’s praise, a glimmer of hope growing in his eyes. “And…”

Sebastian tore the paper from the pad and handed it to Kurt. Kurt took the note and read it, his eyes going over the numbers written there again and again until he finally absorbed their meaning.

“You call me Friday night,” Sebastian said with a fond smile, “and I’ll take you out to dinner.”

Kurt’s slow burning grin returned, lighting up Sebastian’s entire body from the inside out.

“Putain de merde,” Kurt murmured.

Sebastian winked at him, returning his smile.

“That’s my boy.”

 


	106. Stay With Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sebastian is trying to seduce his younger boyfriend, but Kurt’s mind is somewhere else. A short, pseudo-romantic one-shot for the prompt ‘age difference’. Warnings for sex, language, crude humor, anxiety. No underage. Angst, hurt/comfort.

Sebastian runs his tongue down the length of Kurt’s spine, lapping at every curve and teasing every plane until he reaches the swell of his hips, and then travels back towards his shoulders, but Kurt, lying beneath him, doesn’t budge. Sebastian finds a sensitive spot at the base of Kurt’s neck and sucks gently, but even that gets no reaction. He runs his hands down the length of Kurt’s sides with barely there touches that usually have Kurt rolling on the bed, dissolving into a fit of giggles, but this time he gets nothing. Sebastian stops, blowing out a long, frustrated exhale, and looks at Kurt, his gaze fixed to a point on the floor, staring holes into the carpet.

“Am I boring you?” Sebastian groans, dropping onto his side beside his lover on the bed. Kurt startles when the bed dips and he turns his head, looking into Sebastian’s grass-green eyes, still blown wide with lust even as his hard-on disintegrates.

“I’m sorry, Bas,” Kurt says softly. “I guess I was just thinking.”

“Well, stop it.” Sebastian wraps an arm around Kurt’s waist and pulls him close. “Your thinking is killing my boner.”

Sebastian’s attempt at humor falls short as the smile he was hoping for fades into a frown, and a tremulous one at that. Sebastian sighs, resting his forehead against Kurt’s.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks, tracing the path his tongue took down Kurt’s spine with the tips of his fingers.

Kurt pauses for a second, contemplating, trying to decide if he actually _does_ want to talk about what’s bothering him. It seems a little silly now, but as silly as it is, it still makes him glum.

“Come on…” Sebastian sits up on the bed, pulling Kurt along with him, settling his melancholy boyfriend on his lap. “Let me in on the secret. It’ll make you feel better.”

Kurt nods, but he’s still unsure where to begin. Sebastian starts pecking a line of kisses down Kurt’s arm while he waits, hoping that Kurt might simply snap out of it and they can get back to the business of mid-morning fucking.

“Well, I’m twenty and you’re forty…”

“Yeah…” Sebastian doesn’t like to be reminded that he recently left his thirties behind, but apparently it’s bothering Kurt also, so he waits to see where this is headed.

“Which means when I’m thirty, you’re going to be fifty.”

“Okay,” Sebastian agrees, his voice getting tight. “And…”

“And when I’m forty, that’ll make you…”

“Great! So you can do math,” Sebastian snaps sarcastically, reaching a breaking point. His age has definitely been a sore spot with him lately. “What’s your point?”

Kurt sighs. He shuts down a bit, looking from Sebastian’s eyes to his nose, and then lowering his gaze further until it stops on where his fingertips play over the older man’s shoulders. Sebastian watches Kurt’s eyes, so expressive and sullen that his heart melts.

“Babe, age is just a number,” Sebastian says, though he’s hard-pressed himself to find that knowledge all too comforting. “We have more than enough time ahead of us to be together.”

“Twenty years is a big gap,” Kurt mumbles more to himself than to Sebastian. “I mean, besides music and sex, we don’t really have that much in common.”

“So, what does that matter?” Sebastian shrugs, continuing the trail of kisses along Kurt’s skin.

“Well, what if you get tired of me?” Kurt asks.

“Not likely,” Sebastian says, squeezing Kurt tightly in his arms. “I mean, have you seen your ass?”

Sebastian pinches Kurt hard on his left cheek. Kurt squeals and Sebastian laughs, catching his boyfriend by the elbow when he leaps off his lap. Kurt huffs and pulls away to smack Sebastian on the arm.

“I’m serious,” Kurt complains. “What if you decide you want to date someone…you know…your own age?”

Sebastian grimaces dramatically, and that finally gets the shadow of a smile from Kurt.

“If I wanted to date someone my own age, I wouldn’t have picked you up at that charity dinner, now would I?” Sebastian runs a hand up and down Kurt’s thighs, focusing his attention on the way Kurt shifts in his lap with each pass. “I was literally surrounded by middle-aged gay men, but I chose you.”

“Okay,” Kurt hedges, conceding that point and drudging up another one, “what if you find someone younger?”

Sebastian shakes his head and laughs.

“I can barely keep up with you, babe,” he says, looking at Kurt with a fond grin. “Someone younger might kill me.”

Kurt’s smile slips, his bottom lip quivering.

“And that’s another thing…”

 “Oh, God, no!” Sebastian drags Kurt back down to the bed, rolling him onto his back and straddling his hips. “Not this again. Seriously, where do I have to stick my tongue to make you shut up?”

“Sebastian!” Kurt gasps, deeply offended.

“Come on, babe!” Sebastian whines. “Give me a break! It’s only ten in the morning and you have me dead already!”

Sebastian sees a single tear fall from Kurt’s eye and he starts to crumble.

Kurt’s tears are Sebastian’s Kryptonite.

“Look, babe,” Sebastian wraps his arms back around Kurt’s torso and holds him tight, feeling his boyfriend’s body shake as he fights to hold back a tidal wave of tears, “we’ve talked about this before. You and I don’t have any idea what’s going to happen tomorrow, or the next day, or a year from now, or ten years from now. All we can do is enjoy the time we have together. Here. Right here. Right now. Agreed?”

Kurt doesn’t answer. He simply buries his head into Sebastian’s neck and allows a few more tears to fall. Sebastian rocks Kurt back and forth, shushing him tenderly.

“I know,” Kurt manages to whisper – small, and choked, and barely recognizable. “I just want you to stay with me.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Sebastian says quietly. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily, Hummel. I’m keeping this ass.” Sebastian grabs a hold of Kurt’s right cheek this time and squeezes hard.

Kurt yelps and wriggles futilely.

“I’m not sure,” Kurt groans, lurching left and right, squirming out of Sebastian’s iron grip. “I’ve seen the way you eat.”

“What’s wrong with the way I eat?” Sebastian argues.

Kurt rolls his eyes to the point that Sebastian can almost hear them rattle around in his eye sockets.

“Beer and bacon for breakfast is not necessarily the picture of a man who takes care of himself.”

“Fine,” Sebastian says. “Okay, well, if I promise to toss out the bacon and switch the beer to wheat grass, can I please get back to fucking you now?”

Without waiting for an answer, Sebastian lunges for Kurt’s neck, latching on with his lips and sucking hard, enjoying the way Kurt moans and tries to pull away.

“I guess so.” Kurt stops his struggling long enough to kiss Sebastian gently on the lips. Sebastian kisses him back softly, taking a moment amid the tears and the crude humor to cherish his boyfriend, to kiss away his tears and show him that all is still right in their little corner of the world.

“Thanks,” Kurt says, chasing Sebastian’s mouth with one more delicate kiss, pressed against his lower lip like a signature.

“Hey,” Sebastian says with a wicked grin and a wink, “for the honor of pounding your sweet, tight, twenty-year-old ass, any time.”


	107. Tell Me What's On Your Mind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sebastian is sitting at a bar, looking for Mr. Right Now and failing, but right as he plans to leave he sees an incredibly gorgeous man who captivates him. He sits and watches him, fantasizing about everything he would like to do to him. But Sebastian soon discovers that this man is far from ordinary. Rated M for talk about sex.

Sebastian shifts uncomfortably on his bar stool, idly stirring the watered-down rum and coke he’s been nursing for over an hour. He runs a hand over his tired face and up into his hair, mussing what was once a meticulously crafted coiffure, though he figures that the way he looks far from matters now. It has definitely been a rare off-night for Sebastian. The action is slow, even for a Saturday, and the bar he’s sitting in isn’t one of his favorite hangouts anyhow. He doesn’t even really know how he ended up there in the first place. After work, he had hopped on a train, stared off into space for thirty minutes, and before he knew it – bam. He was there.

He’ll know better for next time.

Next time he’ll stick to his tried and true and actually get laid.

He takes one last sip of his drink, checking to see if it’s any more salvageable than it was five minutes ago, and since the answer is no, he reaches into his back pocket for his wallet, preparing to settle his tab and head home. Who knows? Maybe if he hits a random night club along the way he might still have a chance to get lucky.

He slaps a ten spot on the bar, telling the bartender to keep the change, when a trill of high-pitched, lilting laughter cuts through the low murmur of drunken conversation. It’s clear and sweet, almost musical, and he stops, half-standing from his seat with his hand still thrust awkwardly down the back pocket of his pants. He returns to his seat, turning slowly on his bar stool, masking his face with indifference while his green eyes sweep the dingy bar for whoever made that sound.

A thin stream of average, otherwise uninteresting faces make an appearance, and Sebastian decides to go with his first instincts and leave, but then a gorgeous, almost otherworldly man with pale skin and impossibly blue eyes walks into view. He turns to the bartender as he passes Sebastian, not even sparing a glance for the besotted man staring numbly at him like a dumbstruck teenager. When the stranger speaks, that musical voice sounds even more magical than before.

“A Shirley Temple, extra cherries if you please, Ronnie.”

Ronnie (a surly, manticore of a man with a handle-bar moustache and bright red suspenders) behind the bar raises a hand to acknowledge the order.

“Sure thing,” Ronnie says; his gruff, smoker’s voice sounding happier now that he – whoever he is – has arrived. Other patrons at the bar turn to welcome the man with a wave or a smile, even a few high-fives. In fact, Sebastian notices that the overall atmosphere of the bar has become lighter, as if whoever this man is swept in and cleansed the aura of the room.

Or maybe the rum is finally hitting him.

Either way, this man – this ethereally handsome, lithe, fashion-forward man with the sea blue eyes and the incredible ass stuffed into ridiculously tight jeans – is exactly what Sebastian has spent the night searching for.

 _Whoa, those jeans must be hard as fuck to get into,_ Sebastian thinks _, but God would I love to try._

The man sits up straight and runs his hands down his thighs, stopping briefly at his knees then continuing back up to his hips again.

Sebastian leans forward at the sight of this man touching himself, stroking the dark denim pulled tight over trim legs, and almost falls straight off his bar stool.

_God, yes…_

Sebastian bites his lip before he accidentally moans out loud.

_And that voice…I wonder what it would sound like screaming my name. Probably like fucking a Goddamned angel._

The man raises an eyebrow, his eyes searching the bar, looking for someone. His hand trails up the buttons of his shirt, fidgeting with his open collar, and then touches his neck lightly with his fingertips. Sebastian watches his fingertips move, imagining opening the man’s shirt, button by button, following with a kiss to every newly revealed patch of skin, ending at his long neck, tracing a path up to his ear with the tip of his tongue. The man suddenly looks distracted as he peers off into the crowd and swallows hard, his Adam’s Apple bouncing slightly when he does. A waitress comes up to his table with a tray carrying a single drink – a bubbly beverage overflowing with crayon red maraschino cherries. The man’s eyes flick up to the waitress and he smiles, the distracted look dissolving with his bright, enigmatic grin. The waitress sets a square white napkin down in front of him, and then the drink on top of that. The man nods and watches the waitress walk away before he regards his drink.

Sebastian has become positively fascinated with this man, even though apart from being inconceivably sexy he has yet to do anything more extraordinary than sip his drink. The man reaches into his pocket and pulls out a folded piece of paper. He opens it up on the table in front of him and looks at it intently, reaching for his drink again and forgoing the straw this time to take a healthy sip.

 _Oh, are you parched, sweetheart?_ Sebastian muses. _Whatever were you doing before you got here? No matter. I’ve got something I think you’d be thirsty for._

The man looks up from his paper (list? letter? Sebastian can’t tell from where he’s sitting…) and rolls his eyes. He pauses for a moment, as if he’s waiting for something to happen, gaze shifting left and right, and then returns to the words on the page.

 _Sucky news, huh?_ Sebastian commiserates _. I understand how that is. I hope that’s not a Dear John letter._ Sebastian’s mind drifts to thoughts of an envelope resting against his lamp on his bedside table, the letter inside three weeks old but read over so many times that creases from the folds in the paper are almost tearing.

 _Someone with gorgeous eyes like yours shouldn’t have to read something like that,_ he thinks with a sigh.

The man smiles and sighs as well, his eyes skimming the last few lines, and then he folds the letter back up and puts it in his pocket.

_I guess not, huh? Well, good for you. Now, about you riding me until you beg me to let you cum…_

The man rolls his eyes again, but this time he’s staring straight ahead at someone approaching his table. Another unspectacular man from the bar - this one wearing a long, tan coat - walks right up to the only other vacant chair at the table and sits down, apparently without being invited.

 _Rude_ , Sebastian thinks, and the man he’s been watching for the last half-hour raises both eyebrows and nods his head once, almost as if he agrees. Sebastian watches the second man closely, observing the way he sits, how his eyes bounce from face to face around him, how he keeps his hands folded in his lap, suspiciously close to his hip. The waitress comes up to take his order but this man waves her away, and Sebastian gets it.

This second man is a cop.

Suddenly, this show he’s been watching has just become way more interesting. His thin rum and coke forgotten along with all pretense of leaving the bar, Sebastian focuses on the couple, no longer as concerned whether they know he’s watching them or not. He debates finding a chair closer to their table so he can hear what they’re saying, anything to give him a clue as to what his mystery man is up to and maybe figure out a way to get into those felonious pants.

The cop monopolizes most of the conversation from what Sebastian can see. He starts talking, low and calm at first, but then more and more animatedly, gesturing with one hand (since he keeps the other pinned to his side, probably where his holster is). Sebastian prides himself on the fact that he has watched enough episodes of _Law and Order_ that he’s well-versed in many aspects of police behavior by now.

Suddenly, in the middle of the officer’s speech, the man with the iridescent blue eyes starts to laugh, apparently at an inappropriate moment in the conversation because the police officer stares at the man with his mouth agape and his eyes wide, offense written in every line of his strained face. The red-faced man peeks up at his companion and waves a dismissive hand. It looks to Sebastian like he’s assuring the angered officer that he wasn’t laughing at him, or anything he said, and then quiets down, gesturing for the officer to continue.

Sebastian watches in silence as the two talk back and forth, concentrating on their lips to see if he can catch any snippets of what they’re saying. He narrows his eyes until he nearly gets a migraine, but the only words he thinks he can catch are ‘lost’ and ‘help’, and maybe ‘dead’, though it could have been ‘den’ or ‘desk’. Sebastian’s eyes begin to cross, and more and more he’s starting to wish that the police officer guy would just leave so he can go back to his lecherous thoughts.

The man with the blue eyes (Sebastian has decided to call him ‘Noel’ since he bears a striking resemblance to a young Noel Coward) closes his eyes and puts his fingers to his temples, pressing and massaging tiny circles into his skin.

 _Is Captain Stressful Officer Man bothering you, babe?_ Sebastian thinks to himself. _Is he giving you a headache? Come home with me and I’m sure I can make that headache go away. Or possibly give you a bigger one if your head is slamming against my headboard all night long. Fuck, but do you have an ass made for pounding._

In the midst of massaging his temples, the man smiles, chuckling a little. He opens his eyes, throws his head back and laughs, and again the officer looks entirely put off. The man shakes his head, leaning toward the officer across the table, putting a hand up to either amplify his voice or shield his lips from view. Sebastian pouts, feeling intentionally left out of the conversation for some reason. Even though his lip reading skills have so far gotten him nowhere, now he has no hope of finding out what’s going on between Noel and his police officer friend.

The officer nods, his eyes performing a cursory glance of the bar one last time before he gets up and heads for the exit. The man at the table stands as well, reaching into his back pocket, squeezing his hand into the tight fit and pulling out his wallet. Sebastian deflates when he sees the man pull out a bill along with some other thin piece of paper, something that looks suspiciously like a business card, from his wallet. He places the bill beside his half-drunk Shirley Temple on the table, and then turns on his heel. Sebastian expects the man to head out the door after the police officer, but instead he looks straight at Sebastian.

Sebastian pivots his head left and right, then turns his head completely around and glances behind himself to be sure, and yes, he’s the only one in _Noel’s_ sight line at present. He heads right for Sebastian, eyes locked unnervingly on Sebastian’s face, and for a moment Sebastian becomes confused and frightened all at once. The man is striking, but he also has an undeniable air of confidence and power that makes Sebastian want to drop to his knees and do whatever this man tells him to do. The man stands before Sebastian, hands resting on his hips, doing nothing but look at him, raking his eyes over his body from head to toe.

The man shakes his head and holds the thin card out to him, but when Sebastian just stares at him, speechless, he leans forward and slips it neatly into the outer pocket of Sebastian’s button-down shirt.

“The name’s Kurt,” the man says, “not Noel, but I appreciate the compliment.”

Sebastian leans back against the bar, knocked out of his stupor by the man’s opening line, confusion now overwhelming the expression on his face.

“And by the way,” the man Sebastian now knows is named Kurt, not Noel, says, “these pants are seriously hard as fuck to get into, so when you come to pick me up on Friday night, you had better bring your A-game.”

Kurt pats Sebastian’s pocket where the card is safely tucked and winks smugly, turning and heading toward the entrance where the police officer has ducked back in to wait for his companion to follow.

Sebastian still hasn’t said a word, stunned into silence as he watches Kurt leave. Kurt says something to the officer at the door, motioning vaguely in Sebastian’s direction. The officer’s eyes find Sebastian and the weary man smirks, holding the door open for Kurt to walk through. Kurt turns one last time to see Sebastian stuck in the same position that he left him. He raises an arm and waves, blowing Sebastian a kiss. He steps out the door with a satisfied grin, and just like that, he’s gone.

Sebastian waits a moment longer after Kurt has gone, trying to wrap his mind around everything that just happened, but try as he might, it is too surreal for him to comprehend. Noel – not Noel, as it turns out, but Kurt – had called him out, but how? How in the hell is that possible? Well, he works with a police officer. Is there a chance that maybe…what?

 _What, Sebastian?_ he scolds himself. _What on God’s green earth could possibly explain all of that?_

Remembering the card waiting for him in his pocket, he pulls it out carefully, not willing to lose it and the opportunity to call that fascinating man.

Sebastian reads the words on the card, and then he reads them again. He reads them over and over, close to a hundred times, and after their meaning sinks in fully, he’s not sure if he should laugh out loud or find the nearest rock and hide under it.

Sebastian mentally goes over everything he saw tonight – every inflection Kurt made, every movement, every shift of his inquisitive eyes. Sebastian considers himself to be the world’s biggest skeptic, but after tonight, he’s willing to believe anything as long as it puts him on his hands and knees at the feet of that spectacularly gifted man.

_Kurt E. Hummel_

_Medium_

_Psychic Investigator_

 

 


	108. Going to Bed Angry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for a prompt I saw posted but which someone cut and pasted into my inbox -
> 
> Imagine your OTP in bed after a fight, facing away from each other. They both begin to feel guilty about the quarrel, and roll over to apologize… at the same time. They do it so abruptly that they bump their heads together. After being dazed for a few moments, they giggle and kiss, twining their legs together and snuggling. They quietly murmur their apologies and endearments to each other until they fall asleep.

“Fuck you!” Kurt yells. He rushes through his nighttime skin care regime in order to make it to bed before Sebastian does.

“Not tonight, princess,” Sebastian sneers, watching with dark eyes and a smug smile as his boyfriend brushes quickly past him.

“Ha!” Kurt barks, high-pitched and bitter. “You wish, asshole!”

“ _You_ wish.” Sebastian volleys back.

“That’s original,” Kurt calls out, climbing into bed and burrowing beneath the comforter.

“Yeah, well…” Sebastian leans his head out the bathroom door to continue the fight but he’s stymied by an uncharacteristic lack of a good retaliation. “Uh…”

“Yes?” Kurt peeks out from the burrito he has wrapped himself in, his tone mocking as he waits for Sebastian to come up with an appropriate barb to toss his way. The longer Sebastian stumbles over his thoughts, muddied by anger and a touch too much absinthe, the wider Kurt’s conceited grin becomes. “Yup, that’s what I thought,” Kurt says victoriously, bundling himself back up in the comforter and chuckling drily.

“Grrr…” Sebastian growls. His hands shake, eyes burning as he brushes his teeth, scrubbing so hard into his gum line that he begins to taste blood. He spits a mouthful of pink-tinged toothpaste into the sink and shoves his toothbrush into its holder. “Kiss my ass, Kurt!” he roars, storming out of the bathroom and running into the wall in front of him, his head swimming. He stumbles into their brightly lit bedroom (Kurt made sure to turn every conceivable light on before he climbed into bed in order to irritate Sebastian’s headache further) and collapses onto his side of the bed.

Kurt pulls the comforter tight around his body and rolls on his side away from his boyfriend, keeping as close to the edge of the bed as possible without spiraling off onto the floor.

Sebastian’s not in the mood for Kurt’s shit, his irrational fury or his diva attitude. He doesn’t even want to look at him. He reaches blindly behind his back for his end of the comforter, but it’s been pulled towards the center of the bed with barely any actual blanket left for him to use. He finds it and grabs it, tugging hard, trying to dislodge his stubborn boyfriend from the blanket, but no matter how hard he pulls, Kurt doesn’t budge. Sebastian yanks with all his might, but Kurt yanks back, and the heavy blanket slips through Sebastian’s fingers.

“Fine, you little bitch,” Sebastian huffs. He slumps onto the mattress and wraps an arm around himself for warmth. “Have it your way.”

Sebastian kicks his feet, then gets the bright idea to weed them into what’s left of the comforter on his side, trying at least to keep his feet warm. Kurt senses the interloping appendages and pulls the blanket harder, uncovering Sebastian’s feet and leaving him completely blanket-less on his side of the bed. Sebastian pulls his knees up to his chest, desperate to trap whatever’s left of his body heat. He shivers once or twice until he is forced to pull his arms inside his t-shirt. He already knows that between his pounding headache and the steadily plummeting temperature in the room that he’s not getting any sleep tonight, but it’s all he’s got to work with, especially since Kurt refuses to listen to reason.

Kurt rolls back and forth on his side, searching for a comfortable position. He normally lies in the center of the mattress beside Sebastian with his head resting on his boyfriend’s chest, so sleeping alone(ish) on his side is not exactly ideal. He thinks he finds a happy medium between alternating weight on his hip and resting against his elbow in such a way that only part of his body goes numb, and he sighs deeply inside the blanket. It’s not exactly conducive for sleeping but it’s going to have to do, especially if Sebastian is dead set against apologizing.

The men settle into their own separate realms of discomfort, hoping for sleep to come quickly, knowing it’s nowhere in sight.

The room becomes silent, and the silence becomes tense.

Kurt sighs, loud and long, hoping that it might provoke some sort of reaction from his less-than-pleasant boyfriend, but Sebastian doesn’t get the hint, or if he does he’s blatantly ignoring it.

Sebastian’s teeth begin to chatter and he ducks his head inside his shirt to join his arms, but the overcrowded article of clothing starts to rise up his back, exposing more skin, allowing the air around him to steal his heat.

Kurt feels the bed shake slightly with every tremble of his boyfriend’s body and deep inside his chest, his heart hurts. He knows Sebastian. He’s too stubborn to concede defeat, to accept the fact that he’s lost. He’d probably prefer to freeze than admit that he was wrong. Kurt has every right to be upset, so why should he give in and extend the first olive branch? He is completely, undeniably, 100% not at fault.

So, why does he feel like shit?

“You know, I wouldn’t be pissed if you would have just told me that your ex would be there,” Kurt repeats for the 800th time that night.

The words hit Sebastian like a broken, splintered bat that Kurt’s been using to pound away at his head all night long. He flails out from his t-shirt, arms fighting to find their way through the sleeves. He kicks his legs and pounds the mattress with his fists – a 32-year-old toddler having a tantrum.

“I told you already I didn’t know he’d be there!” Sebastian whines with aggravation.

“How could you not know?” Kurt argues with his back still turned. “This was Hunter’s engagement party! Hunter’s your best friend! How could you not know that he was inviting Michael?”

“Because,” Sebastian groans through clenched teeth, “he invited about a thousand people, and Michael was Hunter’s friend long before we hooked up, AND contrary to whatever you believe he didn’t clear the guest list with ME before we agreed to attend.”

Kurt sighs, feeling what’s left of his ire dissolve into the ether.

“You’re right,” Kurt agrees softly. “You didn’t know, and…and maybe I shouldn’t have gotten so angry at you, and thrown my drink in your face in front of everyone.”

“You think?” Sebastian snaps back over his shoulder with less venom than embarrassment at the memory.

Kurt feels a lingering ember of his fury ignite.

“W-well, you shouldn’t have left me to go off and get drunk!”

“I was pissed at you, Kurt!” Sebastian yells. “I didn’t want to be around you!”

“Yeah, well…Michael sure did,” Kurt says, sniffling.

Sebastian glances over his shoulder to get a glimpse of Kurt’s face, but all he can see is his boyfriend’s hunched back aimed his way.

“Wh-what do you mean?” Sebastian asks.

Kurt shifts uncomfortably in his cocoon to relieve the pressure on his tingling arm, but doesn’t say anything.

“Kurt?” Sebastian asks, hoping to lure him out of his shell. “What happened between you and Michael?”

Kurt shifts again, but this time it’s to wipe a few tears off his cheeks.

Sebastian starts to become anxious when Kurt doesn’t answer.

“Kurt?” Sebastian whispers.

“Let’s just say I didn’t realize that the two of you had such an exciting and varied sex life,” Kurt says.

Sebastian closes his eyes.

“Fucking Michael,” he mutters, his mind now veering in the direction of multiple ways he can think of to exact a long-lasting and painful revenge.

“I mean, hot-air balloons, subway cars, the backseat of a Greyhound bus…” Kurt’s voice breaks but he continues. “I tried to give you a hand job under the table at _Callbacks_ and you pitched a fit.”

“That’s because that’s not what I want our relationship to be about,” Sebastian admits, keeping his hands balled into fists, imaging in his head the first place on Michael’s body that he intends to pummel. “And the only reason why Michael even told you any of that stuff is because he’s jealous.”

Sebastian turns his head and sees Kurt reach a trembling hand out of the blanket, grope across the bedside table for his packet of tissues, and bring it back inside the blanket. He smiles.

“Why is he jealous?” Kurt mutters, blowing his nose delicately into his tissue.

“Because what he and I had wasn’t real,” Sebastian explains, “and the moment I realized it, I left him for something a helluva a lot better.”

“Really?” Kurt blows his nose one more time. “And what was that?”

Sebastian reaches a hand back to touch Kurt’s hip.

“You,” Sebastian says.

Kurt goes quiet; even his small sniffles stop. Sebastian holds his breath, waiting for Kurt to do something, to say something. He hears shuffling behind him and Sebastian rolls over in the hopes that his boyfriend is doing the same…which he is. Kurt unrolls from the blanket quickly, scooting half-way across the bed to the center, and smacks right into Sebastian rolling over to meet him. Foreheads collide with a sickening crack, and both men groan.

“God!”

“Jesus Christ!”

Kurt rubs his head frantically with his fingers while Sebastian stays still, stunned from the blow, his vision tilting and spinning. Kurt’s swollen, red eyes flick up to Sebastian’s face, and he bursts out in a sputtering laugh at the sight of his boyfriend staring cross-eyed up at his own forehead, trying to see the bump blossoming there.

Sebastian looks back at Kurt, grimacing with pain, but his green eyes shine nonetheless.

“It’s not funny,” Sebastian pouts. Kurt’s laughter dies down, but his smile remains.

“You’re right,” Kurt manages between chokes of laughter. “It’s not funny.”

Sebastian realizes suddenly that Kurt is lying in front of him, a mere foot away. He hurriedly wraps his arms around Kurt’s body, searching for his heat. Kurt reaches back and takes hold of the comforter, throwing the end over Sebastian in an effort to warm him up.

“I’m sorry,” Sebastian says, leaning down to place a kiss on the tip of Kurt’s nose. “I shouldn’t have left you alone with that asshat.”

“It’s okay,” Kurt says, unconvincingly. “I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have gotten so mad.”

“It’s understandable,” Sebastian admits, kissing Kurt again, this time below his ear, “but please say that next time you’ll talk to me first before you try to drown me with a margarita?”

“You wouldn’t have drowned,” Kurt replies dismissively, “but I promise.”

Sebastian slips his ice-cold hands beneath the waist band of Kurt’s pants, palming Kurt’s ass and delighting in the tortured yelp and jump that forces him closer to Sebastian’s body. Sebastian continues pecking a path of kisses down Kurt’s neck, sneaking his hands between Kurt’s legs to warm them up.

“So, you wouldn’t let me give you a blow job in a movie theater, even if I really wanted to?” Kurt asks, snuggling closer to his boyfriend, actually enjoying the subtle tingle of Sebastian’s cool hands moving gently up his inner thighs.

“I think I would,” Sebastian says, “but for right now, I have plans for us.” He sighs against Kurt’s skin before claiming his mouth, content for now to lay beneath the blanket and kiss his boyfriend until they both fall asleep.

 


	109. Under the Fireworks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was my ACITW inspired one-shot, but instead of posting it when it was due for the Kurtbastian Project, I waited for obvious reasons. Just so you know, this has nothing to do with the AU I'm writing. It's just a one-shot. I hope you enjoy it :) FutureFic, romance

“It might sound strange,” Sebastian says thoughtfully, in a way that sounds totally put on, “but I feel like we’ve done this before.” He flips his end of the aging plaid blanket – an heirloom of summers past - to help Kurt straighten out the wrinkles. The blanket domes upward as it catches the air, but when it settles down and he can finally see Kurt’s face, Sebastian snickers at the unamused stare aimed his way.

“That’s because we have,” Kurt says flatly, “for the last eight years, Bas, and you make that same stupid joke every…single…year.”

“Then you should have expected it,” Sebastian says superiorly, “so don’t look so put out, princess.” Sebastian kicks off his shoes carelessly, leaving them in a heap in the grass, and crawls across the blanket to where Kurt is carefully untying his own shoes and setting them aside. “Ouch! Fuck!” Sebastian groans, lifting up off his hip.

“What was that?” Kurt asks, irritated at what he assumes is another lame joke at his expense. Frowning, he cranes his head to catch a glimpse of where Sebastian is frantically rubbing his sore ass cheek. “Let me guess…you need me to kiss it and make it better?”

Kurt waits for Sebastian to go after the obvious bait he has dangled in front of his face, but Sebastian seems uncharacteristically flustered all of a sudden - his cheeks coloring beneath Kurt’s expectant glare.

“Uh…no...it's nothing,” Sebastian says, the reply clipped and plain and slightly uneasy. He readjusts his jeans and curls up beside a befuddled Kurt. “I must have sat on a rock or something.”

Kurt hears a muffled wave of laughter in the shadows nearby, and looks around at the other blankets spread out on the nearby. To their left is Charlotte and Gregory – Charlotte resting between her husband’s legs and looking at them with a fond, nostalgic smile while Gregory chuckles good-naturedly behind her. Beside them sits Julian and Cooper, who have apparently foregone the formalities of waiting for the fireworks to start and are now engaged in a heated make-out session in full view of God and country, blissfully unconcerned with the discomfort of the family surrounding them.

Of course, there really isn’t any discomfort. If there is one thing that Kurt realized about the Smythe family pretty much from the start is that beyond the gates of their extravagant estate, love is always welcome.

Ahead of them, Liv and Brian have set up a blanket with their three children – Charles, Georgia, and Brianna. The family was surprised when such an independent and career driven woman like Olivia had children so quickly after her marriage, but the five made such a perfect fit that after the initial shock no one ever found a reason to complain. Olivia, Brian, and their children were always so happy, almost Norman Rockwell-esque in the picture they made of familial perfection, that it made Sebastian sick to his stomach just looking at them.

At least, that’s what he made a point of telling Kurt, protesting his love for the three imps excessively even though when the children came to visit Sebastian could often be found throwing a football with Charles, reading to little Georgia, or resting on the couch with baby Brianna in his arms.

Sebastian is still Kurt’s snarky meerkat, but how much that meerkat has grown - from reprehensible rogue to an almost equally reprehensible but undeniable gentleman.

Over to their right sit Kurt’s father and Carole, huddled together for warmth beneath a crocheted blanket Kurt’s mother had made longer ago than he can remember. It’s nice to see it out and about, especially making an appearance at family functions like this one. It makes Kurt feel like she’s there with them. Kurt knows she would have loved the Smythes, and he’s more than certain that she and Charlotte and Olivia would all have been thick as thieves.

The years are not being kind to Kurt’s father, and he thanks the powers that be - whoever they are - for one more year they have together. Kurt looks over at his dad, resting against Carole’s shoulder, and when he catches his son’s worried gaze, Burt smiles.

It nearly brings a tear to Kurt’s eye.

The only empty space on the grass is the spot usually occupied by Finn and Rachel, but they spent this fourth of July in New York, and Kurt knows exactly why. Finn is a private man at heart, regardless of the gregarious and attention-seeking woman that he has for a girlfriend, so he chose to have a private moment alone with her on the day he wanted to ask her to be his wife.

Kurt sighs, thinking about how romantic it will be for her, on a blanket in Central Park, with the fireworks overhead, and Finn down on one knee, asking for her hand. Finn had promised to text Kurt the minute she said yes, and he can’t help but fidget, waiting for the text alert on his phone to chime.

“What is it, babe?” Sebastian asks when Kurt squirms for the fifteenth time. “Do you have ants in your pants or something?”

“No,” Kurt says, rolling his eyes but snuggling closer.

“Because the ants around here are ruthless,” Sebastian jokes. “We should probably take you upstairs and strip you down…”

Kurt doesn’t say a word. He reaches beneath his arm and pinches Sebastian on the flank, smirking at his yelp of pain.

“No, really, tell me how you really feel,” Sebastian grumbles, yearning to rub the spot but not wanting to move and dislodge Kurt from his side. Tonight is a night for being close, and he has no intention of letting Kurt get away.

Kurt sighs again and looks up into Sebastian’s eyes – soft and moss-green beneath the ambient light.

“I’m just thinking about Finn and Rachel,” Kurt admits, his voice wistful and dreamy, matching the expression on his face. Sebastian nods. He knows all about Frankenteen (or Frankenadult, he guesses, since they haven’t been teenagers for years…Sebastian is going to have to think up a new nickname he decides) and his plans to ask his hobbit girlfriend to marry him. He wants to laugh at the corn syrupiness of it all – the obnoxious sentiment that usually makes Sebastian want to hurl.

He would laugh, if his own plans weren’t exactly the same.

The first firework whistles its way into the night sky, exploding with a pop and a brilliant spray of white light. Kurt forgets about Finn and Rachel for the moment and stares star-struck at the gorgeous display, and this year’s display promises to be the most lavish ever, but several other pairs of eyes are pinned instead on Kurt and Sebastian’s blanket, where a shaking Sebastian fumbles in his back pocket for a tiny black box – a box that holds the culmination of the last eight years of their lives, years filled with insults and banter, difficult college years spent apart, a few not-so-serious breakups, one almost serious one, and then the utter and complete realization that there was nothing in the world that they wanted more than each other.

Kurt feels Sebastian move, feels him pull away and he holds his breath, a small smile slipping onto his lips as he dutifully keeps his eyes glued to the sky.

He bites his lip and waits because he knows.

Sebastian could never keep a secret, at least not from Kurt. Kurt knows everyone is watching them. He knows his dream of the last year and a half is about to come true.

After this evening, he’ll spend the night with Sebastian, celebrating the rest of their lives together, but first he’ll go to his bucket list and cross out a recent addition **#247- get engaged to my boyfriend on a picnic blanket under the fireworks.**


	110. Out of Step

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dalton AU. Warning for language and talk of Blaine/Klaine.

“…five, six, seven, eight…”

Kurt counted the steps off under his breath, moving with the rhythm he fought to keep while stumbling through the new steps Blaine had taught them the day before. It wasn’t like there was much to them. Kurt had started to realize after a while that basically all the Warblers did was sway in the background while Blaine sang the solos, so it wasn’t like anything he taught them was technically challenging. Besides, Kurt was a McKinley High Booty Camp alumnus extraordinaire. He feared no triple-ball-change, never ran away from a grapevine or a heel-turn. Regardless of that, he still couldn’t seem to get his feet to do what he wanted. No matter how hard he tried, he always seemed to be out of step.

That was the story of his life, really.

He had been out of step when he was a little boy asking his father for sensible heels for his birthday.

He was out of step in McKinley, hiding who he truly was, and then again when he finally found the courage to come out.

Even here in the hallowed halls of Dalton Academy, surrounded by people who accepted and respected him, he felt more out of step than ever, because being safe meant staying hidden. He didn’t originally think it would matter too much, wearing a uniform and blending in with the crowd, especially with Blaine there to guide him, but conforming meant more than leaving his precious wardrobe behind.

Yes, he wasn’t being Slushied or tossed into dumpsters, but he wasn’t being true to himself, either.

“One, two, three, four…”

He continued counting, continued with the same monotonous steps, and subsequently continued to trip and stumble after every slow box step.

“Dammit,” he muttered, straightening his blazer and preparing to give it another go. He didn’t want to; he _really_ didn’t want to. He was still a bit sore about the Warbler council shooting down his suggestion for a Sondheim medley at Regionals in favor of Blaine’s recommendation of _another_ Katy Perry showstopper. He felt bitter, but he wasn’t exactly surprised. The Warblers had ixnayed every song suggestion he had made since he got into the group.

Maybe it was time for him to just give up and stop trying.

“…three, four, five… _shit_!”

Another slow box step and another stumble, only this time he clipped the carpet with the toe of his loafer and tripped forward into a wooden desk.

Kurt heard a low rumble of laughter, heralding the arrival of the one boy Kurt dreaded running into.

“It’s two, three, kick-step turn,” Sebastian instructed with a smug smile on his face, “not two, three, fall into the front row and take out the audience.”

“Ha, ha,” Kurt deadpanned. “Very funny.”

“Always glad to help,” Sebastian said, finding a prime spot in the room to watch Kurt Hummel make a fool of himself. Kurt returned to his spot and saw Sebastian take up residence on one of the sofas. He groaned internally.

“Don’t you have a blowjob to give in the janitor’s closet at four?” Kurt jeered, getting back to his practicing. “If you don’t leave now you’re going to be late.”

“Unfortunately, Blaine wasn’t available today so my Tuesday afternoon b.j.’s been canceled,” Sebastian answered without missing a beat, enjoying the way Kurt’s cheeks instantly flamed at the mention of Sebastian’s newest obsession – trying to get into the pants of the one and only Blaine Anderson. Sebastian knew all about Kurt’s crush on sex-on-a-stick-and-sings-like-a-dream Blaine Anderson. Kurt wasn’t exactly stealthy, what with the way he doodled Blaine’s name into his notebook or his over-the-top heart eyes every time Anderson entered a room.

Sebastian couldn’t attest to being quite as enamored with Blaine as Kurt was, but the boy did have one heck of an ass. No, Sebastian had decided the first moment they met that it would be way too much fun to mess with Kurt by deflowering his precious schoolboy Blaine.

It was that bashful schoolboy persona that had originally attracted him to Blaine, but more and more Sebastian was beginning to realize that Blaine was kind of…bland. Blaine was a bit on the predictable side, but Kurt - Kurt had all the fire and passion in their relationship. He had the venom and wit of Sylvia Plath, he didn’t wither beneath Sebastian’s insults, and _his_ ass wasn’t half bad, either.

Maybe Sebastian would have to reconsider his game plan. It seemed that he might be wasting his time pursuing the wrong conquest.

“Having sex or performing sexual acts on campus is against school rules, Hummel,” Sebastian taunted. “I would think that a good, upstanding Dalton boy such as yourself would have the rule book memorized backward and forward.” Sebastian lowered his eyes and gazed up at Kurt innocently – succeeding in coming across as innocent as a bloodthirsty jackal. “You wouldn’t be trying to get me kicked out of Dalton, would you?”

“Not that that would stop you,” Kurt bit back, staring at his feet so he wouldn’t have to see the gloating smile on Sebastian’s face.

“You’re absolutely right, princess,” Sebastian agreed, “and do you know why?”

“If I say I don’t care, would you shut up and leave?” Kurt asked, performing a perfect half-turn in time to the music in his head.

“No one here can touch me,” Sebastian drawled despite Kurt’s objection. He made his way across the room to where Kurt struggled through the rest of the steps, doing his level best to ignore any malicious comments Sebastian might make. “First of all, my dad’s a state’s attorney.” Sebastian ran his fingers lightly across the furniture as he stalked through the room. “Second, my parents donate a shitload of money to this dump every year.” He rounded the sofa, picking up one of the flat throw pillows and hitting it against his hand, watching with a wince of snobbish disgust as a cloud of dust wafted up into the air. He tossed the pillow back down in vicious retaliation. “Finally, I’m a Dalton legacy…My grandfather came here….my father came here…” Sebastian leaned back against the wooden desk only a foot or so from Kurt. “And I fully intend to come here, if you catch my drift.”

Kurt stepped out too far to the right and his foot slid out from under him.

“In fact,” Sebastian continued, delighting in making Kurt flub up, especially when he looked like he had been concentrating so hard, “I could drink in here, smoke in here…” Sebastian’s voice dropped dramatically as he continued. “I could strip you naked right now and fuck you here on this desk if I wanted to, and nobody would say boo about it.”

Kurt stood up straight and glared at the boy who winked suggestively at him.

“Well, feel free to fuck _yourself_ ,” Kurt snapped back, “just so long as it’s not in here. I need to concentrate.”

“Do I distract you?” Sebastian purred, inching across the desk closer to Kurt. Kurt didn’t look up; he simply side-stepped away.

“No,” Kurt lied, “but you reek like the perfume department at Bloomingdale’s and your constant yapping is giving me a colossal headache.”

Kurt turned his back to Sebastian, which he realized too late was a mistake when the irritating boy wolf-whistled, presumably at the sight of Kurt’s swaying hips, but he had to find a quick way to hide the blush growing in intensity on his cheeks. Despite how repugnant he found the idea, the image of Sebastian bending him over the desk was one he couldn’t seem to get out of his head. After all, Kurt had a crush on Blaine – charming, dapper, gentlemanly Blaine. Blaine would never make such crass comments to Kurt. Blaine would never whistle at Kurt’s ass. Blaine wouldn’t proposition Kurt on a wooden desk in the senior commons.

Sebastian was absolutely nothing like Blaine.

So, why did the idea of Sebastian get Kurt so hot under the collar?

Sebastian dialed down the flirting, but he didn’t leave, content to watch Kurt fluster over and over again with a mischievous grin on his face.

“You know, you’re dropping a step,” Sebastian said, pushing off the desk he was leaning on and walking over to where Kurt gave it one last go, not wanting Sebastian to be right; _anything_ but that.

“No, I’m not,” Kurt argued, whining slightly. He performed the routine over, but Sebastian stopped him midway, reaching out a hand to grab hold of his elbow. His grip was more gentle than Kurt expected – his fingers wrapping securely around the juncture of Kurt’s upper arm, and suddenly Kurt felt a jolt. A sparkle of energy shimmied beneath his blazer and shot up his arm, sparking like a spray of fireworks over his skin, so potent that Kurt could almost hear it sizzle. Both boys stopped and Kurt could see by the way Sebastian’s expression shifted on his face – from arrogance to confusion - that he felt it, too. But all too soon Sebastian’s cocky smile returned, growing from the curl of his lips until it reached his eyes. The moment was gone, whatever that moment had been, and Kurt searched his mind for a way to excuse it away.

The weather had been dry lately as the seasons began to change from fall to winter. He was also spinning around on an old, dusty rug. Put them all together and you get static electricity.

Yes…definitely static electricity.

Thank you, science.

“Now that I have your attention,” Sebastian said, “watch me.”

Sebastian took Kurt’s place and started to move, his hips swaying from side to side in a way that made Kurt forget to focus on his feet. Sebastian saw and snapped his fingers in Kurt’s face, chuckling softly when Kurt startled and stepped back.

“My feet, princess, are on the floor,” Sebastian sassed. “Focus on my feet.”

Kurt straightened up stiffly, blushing to his roots, but surprisingly Sebastian let it slide without another ruthless taunt. He performed the routine again. Kurt’s eyes stayed glued firmly to Sebastian’s feet so that they wouldn’t stray, and to Kurt’s dismay he discovered that Sebastian had been right all along. Kurt had dropped a step.

“Fuck!” Kurt gasped, exasperated.

“Well, if you really want to,” Sebastian said, wiggling his eyebrows and stifling a laugh.

Kurt rolled his eyes and groaned.

“Your loss.” Sebastian shrugged, brushing off Kurt’s rejection and getting into place again. “I’m going to do it one last time,” Sebastian said instructively, “and then you can give it a try.”

Sebastian moved through the steps once more and Kurt paid close attention, eager to learn the routine and have know-it-all Sebastian be on his way…but for the life of him Kurt was finding it hard to remember why he wanted Sebastian gone so badly.

“Okay, enough watching,” Sebastian announced, motioning Kurt forward with a wave of his hand. “Now it’s time to perform.”

Kurt grimaced at Sebastian’s choice of words, but the tone of his voice wasn’t the usual bordering-on-the-edge-of-mockery tone he usually affected. He sounded like he really cared if Kurt got this right or not…

…or he was desperate to cop a feel. Only time would tell.

Kurt walked over to Sebastian warily, eying his hands with suspicion before taking a spot in front of him.

“Okay, we’ll take it from the refrain,” Sebastian said. “Are you ready?”

Kurt didn’t look back over his shoulder at Sebastian when he nodded, too focused on the strange lump growing in his chest – a lump that crowded around his heart, making it hard to breathe.

“Five…six…seven…eight…”

Kurt started to move, repeating the steps he saw Sebastian do, picking up the missed step after the slow box step and just like that he had it down. It was so easy this time around that Kurt wanted to cheer in triumph.

“One more time, Hummel,” Sebastian said, not waiting for Kurt’s approval. “Five…six…seven…eight…”

Kurt moved again and this time Sebastian shimmied up beside him so that they were dancing side by side. Kurt could see him clearly now from the corner of his eye, but what struck him more was the way they moved together, playing off each other – each sway of their hips, each touch of their feet on the floor, each turn, even their posture was nearly identical as they danced this way.

Kurt swung his arm out on the last step and felt his hand slide into Sebastian’s grip. Sebastian pulled Kurt close before he had a second to think about objecting and held him in his arms, twirling him around a la Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, dipping him deeply and then setting him free – way too quickly for Kurt’s liking.

“Wh-where did you learn that?” Kurt asked, laughing to cover up his breathlessness.

“I took ballroom dance at my parent’s country club for six years,” Sebastian said with a one-shoulder shrug, “because, of course, that’s what every boy wants to do on a Sunday morning - learn the foxtrot in the arms of a smelly old lady.”

“You poor thing,” Kurt said sincerely but still with the echo of a laugh dying in his throat. “If it’s any consolation, you’re really good at it.”

“Thank you,” Sebastian said, bowing slightly. “Maybe I could teach you.”

The words slipped out past Sebastian’s lips unguarded and both boys stopped cold. Kurt stared into Sebastian’s eyes, waiting for the raunchy remark or rude comment that was sure to ruin the moment, but none came. In fact, there was something new in Sebastian’s intense green eyes that Kurt hadn’t seen before.

Fear. Fear of rejection.

Fear of being rejected by Kurt.

Kurt swallowed hard as the lump in his chest grew bigger, and everything around him seemed to stand still, waiting for his decision. His hand moved slowly from his side, in search of that other hand that fit it so well.

“Th-that would be…”

“Kurt!” a relieved tenor voice and a long sigh broke through the tension. Sebastian straightened up in a snap, and Kurt’s hand dropped back to his side. “Here you are! Trent told me I might find you in here.” Blaine breezed through the room, acknowledging Sebastian with a smile and a short nod before crossing the to Kurt. “He said it looked like you were having trouble with the new routine. I can help you, if you want.”

“Well…” Kurt started, his eyes shifting between Blaine’s soft, honey-colored eyes and Sebastian’s almost emerald ones, “I…”

“Don’t worry about it, Blaine. I took care of it,” Sebastian interjected without his usual flirtatious fire.

“Oh.” Blaine turned back to Sebastian, surprised that he hadn’t left yet. “That’s nice. Thank you, Sebastian.”

Sebastian nodded, his eyes lingering on Kurt’s face as he spoke as if they were still the only two people in the room.

The three became silent and another tension grew - not a tension bred of promise and excitement, but an uncomfortable one – one that Sebastian was itching to get away from.

“Well, I’ll just leave you guys to it,” Sebastian teased, winking and grinning like normal, though there was a degree to which Kurt felt that his heart wasn’t in it. “You take care of that Warbler, Blaine.”

Sebastian turned on his heel and walked toward the door. Kurt watched Sebastian leave, weaving his way through the sofas and the rest of the outdated furniture, stopping at the door to offer one last tight-lipped nod in good-bye. Kurt raised a hand to wave but Blaine slipped in front of him, grabbing his hand and blocking Kurt’s view of the door. When Blaine moved aside to drag Kurt into position, Sebastian was gone.

“Okay, Kurt,” Blaine said, rubbing Kurt’s shoulders in that familiar way he used to relax him…and it worked, too – or at least, it did. The fact that it didn’t at the moment unnerved Kurt. “Show me what Sebastian taught you. Five…six…seven…eight…”

Kurt took two steps to the left, and then one to the right, with Blaine moving beside him, and he sighed. The world seemed to fall back into place, and that moment with Sebastian before – that strange, confusing, exciting moment – had passed. This was the way things were supposed to be…until he stepped out again to the left and tripped over his own feet.

“Oh, Kurt,” Blaine cooed, and the sound of pity in his voice nearly enraged Kurt. Sebastian didn’t pity him. He treated him like he was human. “You should have come to me if you had a problem with the steps. Let’s start from the beginning.” Blaine started again and Kurt tried to follow, but the outcome was the same. He could dance beside Blaine all he wanted, but he would still be out of step.

Blaine started talking, but Kurt couldn’t really hear him, his mind reeling with the memory of how easy it had been to fall into step with Sebastian.


	111. Shelter from the Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A freak fall storm forced two strangers to hide beneath the same awning. Sometimes fate works in mysterious ways. Written for the Glee Collage Fest Day 2 prompt 'Extreme Weather'.

It wasn’t supposed to rain.

The meteorologists on five out of seven news channels swore by it.

Well, 20% chance of rain was precisely what they said, which meant 80% chance of sunshine.

All morning the sky was cloudless and clear, with the crisp chill of autumn’s bite in the swirling wind. The air felt dry and heavy, but that was usually the way of fall weather in New York.

But the deceptively blue sky and its accompanying sunshine turned out to be the calm. As soon as noon hit, the sky darkened, and with less warning than a crack of lightning and a ground-shaking boom of thunder, rain began to pummel the pavement. People scattered like ants abandoning a doomed hill, racing for the safety of available door hangs and empty stairwells to wait out the rain or to call a cab.

Both men reached the awning at the same time, running at it blindly from different directions – the smallest green and white striped awning covering the narrowest window of a bakery on 5th avenue.

Both men collided beneath the shelter, crashing bodily into one another, and an argument ensued.

“Uh, this is my hiding place.”

“No, it’s not. It’s mine. I got here first.”

“I beg to differ.”

“Beg all you want, princess. It only gets me hot.”

“Ewww! Does that usually work for you?”

“Nine times out of ten.”

“Then just call me Mr. Ten.”

“Hello, Mr. Ten. My name’s Sebastian.”

“Lovely to meet you. Now can you kindly get out from under my awning? My Forzieri suede shoes are getting ruined.”

“Not a chance,” Sebastian said, standing his ground. The wind changed direction, blowing the rain horizontal and soaking the two of them despite the protection of the awning. “Well, that sucks.”

“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t be getting wet if you would just leave.” Mr. Ten huddled closer to the smooth brick wall of the building behind them. He pulled his coat tighter around him, shivering in his damp clothes.

“But then _I_ would get wet,” Sebastian argued, happy to have someone to match wits with until the weather stopped.

“That’s not my concern,” the man growled – an almost wild sounding, animalistic growl.

That sound definitely _could_ get Sebastian hot, if he wasn’t currently getting soaked through several thousands of dollars worth of designer clothing.

Sebastian turned to properly confront the obnoxious man crowding him out of his shelter. The man stood as close to the building as a human being could get without physically becoming one with the wall. He hunched over within the confines of his coat, but from what Sebastian could tell the man was an inch or two shorter than him. His brown hair hung down in his face, clumped against his forehead, resembling a flat, drowned animal. He had the collar of his coat popped, shielding his mouth and nose from the cold, but Sebastian could still catch a glimpse here and there of the man’s pale skin, reddened by the icy spray of water. The man felt himself being examined and flicked his eyes up to meet Sebastian’s.

Sebastian met the man’s eyes and couldn’t help himself from staring. His eyes fascinated Sebastian. As the man turned his face to get a good look at Sebastian, his eyes seemed to change color in the light – from frosty blue to stormy grey, surrounding a ring of yellow-green and over-wide, black pupils.

The man had enough of being stared at like a sideshow oddity and scowled in warning. When Sebastian refused to move, the man bumped him with his hip.

“Ouch!” Sebastian yowled. “Fuck you and your sharp hip bones!”

“Leave!” the man demanded.

“You know, you’re kind of a bitch,” Sebastian sneered.

“I’ve been called that by more interesting people than you.”

Lightning split the sky right above them and the man’s eyes flew open wide. The thunder boomed overhead, shaking the awning, setting off alarms in the cars nearby. It was so tremendously jarring that Sebastian actually jumped.

“Jesus Christ!” he yelled, covering his ears with his palms a second too late and wincing when they started ringing. “What the fuck kind of storm…”

He turned to the intruder behind him once again, but the man was curled into the wall, his face hidden, his shoulders trembling.

Sebastian smiled.

“You’re not scared of a little thunder are you?” he teased, but the man didn’t acknowledge the comment at all. Sebastian figured his ears were ringing, too. Sebastian’s ears wouldn’t seem to stop ringing. “Hey,” he said, putting a hand to the man’s shoulder and pulling his face out of hiding. “I said…”

“I heard what you said!” the man screamed, his voice shaking, his entire body tight with fear. When he snapped his eyes up to stare Sebastian down, Sebastian could see that he had started crying.

Normally this was just the kind of weakness Sebastian would exploit to win an argument – or in this case, an awning. He wasn’t a corporate attorney for nothing, after all – but something about the way this man stared up at him, eyes filled with anger, but also crowded with a deep standing fear, struck a chord and Sebastian found himself softening.

“Hey,” Sebastian said, leaning against the wall beside his adversary, “what’s the matter?”

“N-nothing’s the matter,” the man stuttered, shivering with more than cold. “A lot of people don’t like lightning and thunder. That’s not weird.”

“You’re right,” Sebastian agreed. “That’s not weird. But most people don’t freak out quite this badly.”

“I’m not most people,” the man hissed, and Sebastian was startled by exactly how much of a hiss the sound was.

“Obviously.” Sebastian moved closer to get a better look at the man burrowed in the coat. Sebastian peered at his skin – dark freckles sparsely spattered across his skin…but not skin, not completely. It was pale and fine - downy in texture. It didn’t cover his skin completely, which gave him a mottled appearance.

When the next fork of lightning flashed and the man’s pupils narrowed to vertical slit, Sebastian knew for sure.

“You’re a …”

“Shhh!” Mr. Ten stopped Sebastian before he could say the word. “Yes, I am, but I would rather the whole frickin’ world didn’t know.”

“How can they not know?” Sebastian asked, equally amused as he was confused. “Don’t you have a tail beneath your coat? Or pointy ears?” Sebastian bent over to take a futile peek beneath the man’s coat, but the man turned away.

“I don’t have a tail,” the man growled, but there was a smile somewhere in the rough, menacing sound. “And as for my ears…” He raised a hand, which Sebastian could see better now had long, pointed nails – not claws exactly, but longer and thicker than most human fingernails, and perfectly manicured – and brushed a lock of hair back from his face. The man didn’t have the signature pyramid-pointed ears that most cat-hybrids (which Sebastian assumed this man was) had. His ears were only slightly pointed at the tips, and covered with a fine layer of fur like his face.

Sebastian found himself drawn to it. He wanted so much to touch it but he was sure that doing so would be committing some horrible hybrid faux pas.

“So…what kind…I mean, I know that’s probably rude, but…” Sebastian frowned. He couldn’t remember the last time he ruined a sentence that badly.

“I’m a lynx,” the man said, opening the collar of his coat a bit and loosening a scarf that hid underneath. Sebastian caught a peek of a few dark spots marking up a larger expanse of soft, pale fur. Sebastian swallowed lightly at the pattern the spots made, how delicate and oddly enticing they looked, as if they were carefully painted across his skin. “I have a recessive gene. It’s very rare, but that’s why I look more human than other hybrids you might have seen.”

The man covered the spots back up, tying the scarf tight and closing the neck of his coat. Sebastian missed them immediately.

He wondered if those spots dipped down below this man’s collar…and how far they traveled beneath.

“So, do all hybrids hate extreme weather?” Sebastian asked, relaxing against the wall, but also pulling back to give the man more room beneath the awning.

“I’m not sure,” the man said, leaning against the wall beside Sebastian. “From what I hear, yes, but I have different reasons.”

“Might I ask what those reasons are?” Sebastian ventured.

The man raised an eyebrow.

“That sounds kind of like a second date revelation, don’t you think?” he said smoothly.

Sebastian grinned.

Was this hybrid-lynx with the gorgeous storm blue eyes flirting with him?

Another crack of lightning, followed by an immediate clap of thunder interrupted them, but from what Sebastian could tell the storm was passing them by. It didn’t seem to matter to the hybrid-lynx, who ducked back into his coat and tried to make himself small beside Sebastian. Sebastian couldn’t bear watching this man suffer any longer and circled his arms around him. It seemed almost like a compulsion – an instinct - to pull him into the safety of his coat.

They stood together awkwardly in this embrace. Sebastian ran a hand down the man’s back and he went rigid, but he stopped shivering.

“Uh…thanks,” his muffled voice issued from somewhere inside the coat. Sebastian chuckled.

“You’re welcome,” Sebastian said. “But if we’re moving past the ‘get out from under my awning, you asshole’ stage and leaping straight to the cuddling stage, don’t you think I should know your name?”

Sebastian felt the man hold his breath, but then he began to laugh, too.

“It’s Kurt,” he said, lifting his head up from Sebastian’s coat. “My name’s Kurt.”

“Kurt?” Sebastian’s face twisted into an almost disappointed frown. “Just Kurt?”

“Yes,” Kurt said drily, glowering in offense, “just Kurt.”

Kurt stepped back, but Sebastian followed him, keeping him locked in his embrace. Kurt rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t hide the smile on his lips.

“Really?” Sebastian continued. “Because there’s another hybrid working in my office, and his name is Malacore. And there’s one living in my building. Her name is Athena.”

“So?” Kurt asked, crossing his arms beneath Sebastian’s coat.

“So, I thought all hybrids had cool, mythological, comic book hero sounding names,” Sebastian explained, a smirk curling the right corner of his mouth.

“Well, my name is Kurt, and you’re just going to have to accept that.”

He bit his lower lip, revealing slight, white fangs.

Sebastian’s heart skipped.

“Fine,” he huffed playfully. “But, can I call you Thor? Or Pendragon? You know, in private?”

Kurt shook his head and sighed, resting his damp forehead against Sebastian’s shoulder.

“Oh, no,” he said, wrapping his arms around Sebastian’s waist and holding him tight. “What the hell have I gotten myself into? I’m stuck with you now, aren’t I?”

“I’m afraid so,” Sebastian affirmed. “But you know, you only have yourself to blame.”

“I do?” Kurt raised his eyes to meet Sebastian’s, the yellow-green ring surrounding Kurt’s pupil overwhelming the blue-grey until his pupils shrank back to normal, and human-looking eyes returned to take their place.

“Yup,” Sebastian said. “At any time you could have left my awning, and then none of this would have ever happened.”

Kurt grinned wickedly and pinched Sebastian’s side. Sebastian yelped appropriately, but when Kurt’s nails grazed his flank over his shirt, something inside his chest burned hot.

Sebastian didn’t want to let Kurt go, but he needed something else to pull his focus and give him an opportunity to cool down. The rain had settled from a torrent to a drizzle, and Sebastian turned his head left and right to get a better view of the neighborhood around them. He looked down the side of the building the rain had them pinned against, and laughed.

“Uh, Kurt? You do realize we’re standing two feet from the front door of this bakery, don’t you?”

Kurt peeked up and looked around Sebastian’s body. Sure enough he could see another green and white striped awning, a larger one, shielding three steps and a glass door. Customers passed by, going in and out steadily, peeking at them with smiles or tiny awww’s. One woman carrying a white cake box tied in candy cane twine simply sighed with a fond grin on her face.

Kurt snickered.

“Well, crap,” he said, shaking out the legs of his sopping wet pants.

“I guess you ruined your shoes for nothing, huh?” Sebastian asked.

Kurt held on tighter and shook his head.

“Not for nothing,” he said with a smile.

“Do you want to go inside and get a cup of coffee?” Sebastian asked. “It’s the least I can do.”

Kurt nodded.

“The very least,” he agreed, “but not just yet. I want to stand out here with you a little while longer.”


	112. Picture Perfect

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is my submission for the Glee Collage Fest prompt ‘Fair’. After losing Best in Show at a local county fair, Kurt is inconsolable, but his gracious boyfriend tries to cheer him up by having a little fun in an old school photo booth. Rated M for sex, language, some tasteless humor (a Dr. Kvorkian reference), and slight exhibitionism. Future fic, AU, humor.

“So, what do you want to do now, babe?” Sebastian asked his sullen boyfriend, trying to pull him from his funk. “We could go get a bite to eat if you want.”

“Oh, sure,” Kurt grumbled, still muttering to himself, festering in his sour mood, only giving his boyfriend half of his attention and most of his ill humor, ”should we treat ourselves to the deep friend Snickers, the deep fried butter, or the deep fried frog’s legs?”

“Well,” Sebastian said, I was thinking…”

“They should just take all that trans fat,” Kurt interrupted, railing on with his tirade, “and inject it straight into our arteries since that’s where it’s going anyway. Either way, we’ll be spending $50 to kill ourselves. I think Dr. Kvorkian charged his patients less than that.”

“I think they have a stand that sells deep friend cheesecake,” Sebastian offered.

Kurt stopped and looked up, squinting ahead and letting that idea wash over him. Eventually, he shook his head, choosing life over cheesecake.

“No,” he said pointedly to make his message clear on the subject of deep friend snack foods and continued to shuffle along, taking up his irate grumbling right where he left off.

“How about we hit the Midway then?” Sebastian suggested, trying to stay upbeat while they steadily melted in the heat. “I’ll buy us a roll of tickets and you can go shoot something.” Sebastian elbowed Kurt playfully on the arm. “I know how much you like to shoot stuff. Huh? Maybe win a flammable polyester teddy bear made by forced labor in a third world country?”

Kurt glared at his boyfriend, a single snarky eyebrow raised, judging him, and then turned his attention back to the asphalt beneath his feet.

“Oh, come on, Kurt!” Sebastian groaned –sticky and exasperated, his sweaty clothes clinging to him and hanging heavily against his body. “We’ve been here over _four_ hours, and so far all we’ve done is look at stupid fucking flowers!”

Kurt stopped again, but this time the glare he turned on Sebastian was murderous.

“My specialty grafted hybrid rosy adenium obesum was perfection,” Kurt growled, punctuating each word with pinched forefinger and thumb stabbing the air. “The white on the petals was flawless and unblemished, the striping was straight and the coloration was saturated throughout. But did I win?”

Sebastian shook his head, his face portraying his sincerest mask of sympathy while internally he groaned out of complete boredom.

“That’s right,” Kurt emphasized. “I didn’t. Instead, they picked some amateur asshole’s triple indigo monstrosity over my carefully cultivated masterpiece. I mean, did you see that putrid thing? And indigo? More like violet. I mean, what was he feeding that thing? Miracle-Gro?”

“I agree,” Sebastian said condescendingly, hoping not to get shredded in lieu of the true victim, who was walking the fair somewhere carrying what should have been Kurt’s Best in Show ribbon.

“Well,” Kurt said, going from pissed off to pouty, stomping his foot like a toddler throwing a tantrum, “go back to the O’Brien Hall and tell the judges to give me my ribbon then.”

Sebastian wrapped his arms around a sulking Kurt, running a soothing hand up his boyfriend’s back, wondering how in the hell he managed to not sweat like a fucking sow in heat beneath the 90 degree Northern California sun. Sebastian looked around them, trying to gauge their distance to the parking lot, his Porsche, and air conditioning, dying to get on the road and drive them straight to the water, when he noticed a line of old-school photo booths lining the fairway.

He grinned, hit by a stroke of genius.

“Hey,” he said, his voice sliding into that sultry register that immediately told Kurt that they were on the precipice of doing something that might get them arrested, “I have an idea that I think will make you feel _much_ better.”

Kurt looked up, still sulking but curious. Sebastian leaned his head to the side, indicating a nearby booth decorated with fading red, blue, and yellow paint on a white background. A stenciled sign overhead beside a dusty TV-looking screen read, “Wacky Wildo’s Photo Booth – $2 for 4 photos”.

Kurt’s face scrunched.

“You want me to get my picture taken to record my failure for posterity?”

“No, princess…” Sebastian rolled his eyes, “I want to fuck you in public, and this photo booth is where that’s going to happen.”

“Shhh!” Kurt jumped, clamping a hand over Sebastian’s mouth a second too late. “We can’t do that here!” Kurt anxiously eyed the tween-agers hanging all around them. No one seemed to pay any attention to the two of them, though – too busy talking and giggling, getting their pictures taken, funny faces with puffed-out cheeks and stuck-out tongues popping up on screens over booths all along the walkway. A cluster of thirteen-somethings laughed and groaned at a series of pictures that flashed on one of the screens showing two of their friends kissing. It was a G-rated kiss – chaste and appropriately awkward – but the two lovebirds featured stumbled away hand-in-hand, biting their lips and blushing bright red.

The image made Kurt smile.

“Of course we can,” Sebastian said, knocking on the booth closest with his closed fist. “These are ancient. They don’t have curtains like the ones at the mall. They have doors.”

Sebastian wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

Kurt wasn’t quite as convinced that this was a good idea, but Sebastian sneaked a hand into his back pocket, and he felt himself being persuaded. Unexpectedly, the door Sebastian had knocked on opened and a little boy stepped out, his eyes downcast, kicking at the gravel with disappointment on his face.

He looked up at the two men standing in front of him; his sad brown eyes jumping from one surprised face to the other.

“This one’s a bust, mister,” the boy said, staring back down at his shoes. “I must have put six dollars in there and pressed the red button a hundred times, but it just doesn’t work, and now I’m out all my arcade money.”

Sebastian scoffed.

“Sucks for yo--oomph!”

Kurt cut Sebastian off with a punch to the gut, breaking out of his boyfriend’s embrace.

“Here, sweetie,” he said, reaching into the pocket of his shorts to get his wallet. Kurt thumbed through the bills he had and pulled out a five and a one. “As it turns out, we like them broken.” He winked at the little boy and handed him the money.

The boy clapped his hands and hopped on the balls of his feet, happy to be reunited with his lost currency.

“Thanks!” he crowed, taking the money and skipping away toward the arcade.

“Was that really necessary?” Sebastian groaned, rubbing his sore stomach.

Kurt frowned at his boyfriend.

“You can be such an incredible ass sometimes,” Kurt scolded.

“I also happen to have an incredible ass,” Sebastian said quietly so as not to attract attention to their plan. “Why don’t we get inside that booth so you can find out?”

Sebastian opened the door and Kurt stepped inside with an excited smile.

“I don’t know,” Kurt said warily as he pressed against the wall of the narrow booth to let Sebastian in behind him. “I think I should be on top. I think you’d crush me in here.”

“Suit yourself,” Sebastian said, shutting the wooden door and putting the hook through the eye to secure it. It didn’t look like the most steadfast locking system to Kurt, but when Sebastian pressed a hand against it, the door wiggled slightly, but didn’t move any farther.

Sebastian closed in on Kurt, ready to kiss him, but Kurt put a hand to his chest and stopped him.

“I’m all for romance,” Kurt said, unbuttoning Sebastian’s shorts and steering him toward the tiny red stool in the center of the booth, “but it’s about a thousand degrees in here, so I suggest we get to this before we roast like Cornish game hens.”

“Mmmm,” Sebastian hummed, watching Kurt undo the button of his owns shorts with hungry eyes, “I love it when you’re so commanding…and when you talk about food. Shit! I really am hungry.”

Kurt rolled his eyes as he turned around, settling over Sebastian’s hard cock, balancing on the balls of his feet so as not to slip too far forward.

“When we’re done here, I’ll get you one of those huge turkey legs we saw near the entrance.”

“I’d rather eat _your_ entrance,” Sebastian said around a moan as Kurt’s sweat-slicked body slid over him, his immense heat adding to the heat around them, “but I could so go for a turkey leg right now.”

Kurt bit back a snide comment and whimpered as he took his boyfriend deep inside his body, throwing his head back with a muffled moan.

The temperature in the booth soared instantly with the two of them locked in it, and Kurt finally started to sweat, but that didn’t matter once he slid completely down over Sebastian’s cock and began to move. The tight fit in the ancient booth didn’t allow any room for Sebastian to pound up into his boyfriend, but Kurt, finding this position to be exceptionally suited for hitting that spot where he desperately needed his boyfriend’s attention, was already doing all the work. All Sebastian needed to do was sit back and enjoy the ride.

Kurt worked smoothly over Sebastian’s cock, thighs burning as he moved up and down, sweat rolling off his skin and falling in heavy drops to the floor. He leaned forward and rested his hands against the glass of the darkened viewfinder, his sweaty palms sliding across the various green and red buttons as they slipped down the slick surface. He braced against the wall for leverage, pushing down into Sebastian’s lap, slapping his ass down harder and harder with an obscene, wet _thwapping_ sound.

“That’s it,” Sebastian panted into the heavy air, swallowing it in big gulps, fighting the heat to breath, “fuck me, baby. God, yes.” Sebastian’s hands shook with the intensity of the suffocating humidity and the corresponding fire of his orgasm roaring in his stomach, begging for release.

“I…I’m going to cum,” Kurt whimpered, still trying hard to stay quiet though at this point he realized it was probably moot. The little booth shook with every movement, and on top of that, Sebastian had no concept of quiet, cursing almost non-stop now that he was so close. Somebody had to know what was going on in there, and Kurt wasn’t looking forward to facing the crowd outside when they were done.

But just as the fear crept into his brain, it was shoved out again by the dizzying orgasm beating into his skull, stealing his strength and his breath, almost relieving him of consciousness as well. The surge of blood rushing away from his brain sent lights and stars swirling around his head, flashing in front of his eyes, so powerful he swore he saw them light the room around them.

“Oh…oh my God,” Kurt mumbled.

“Kurt?”

“That was…that was extreme,” Kurt continued, giddy and lightheaded.

“Uh…Kurt?” Sebastian’s sweaty hands tugged up Kurt’s shorts, but Kurt didn’t mind. He kind of liked it when Sebastian took care of him.

“Now I know why men fuck in bath houses,” Kurt chuckled, standing on shaking legs to help Sebastian dress him, “because that…”

“Kurt…” Sebastian pulled up Kurt’s shorts almost roughly, doing the button and zipper as best he could with fingers that refused to cooperate.

“There’s no way I’m going to Zumba tonight,” Kurt sighed. “I must have lost 20 pounds…”

“Kurt!” Sebastian stood, pushing Kurt to a completely standing position and quickly fumbling with his own shorts.

“What the fuck!?” Kurt scowled. “This was your…”

Kurt stopped to take a breath, and that’s when he heard it – gasping and giggling, accompanied by a clicking sound that he could hear overhead. Another click and the giggling turned into a wave of uncontrollable laughter. Kurt’s muddied mind discerned the source of the laughter, and his sweaty face lost all its color.

“Oh no,” he whispered through quivering lips. “Oh my God, no.”

“Kurt,” Sebastian said, sounding much more sober and in control of his mental faculties than his boyfriend. “We’ve got to go now!”

Before a horrified Kurt could object, Sebastian grabbed Kurt’s hand and unlocked the door. Sebastian kicked the door open, the wooden slab slightly stuck in its frame from being swollen by the heat. Air from outside sucked in, cooling their sweat-soaked bodies. Only then did it hit Kurt just how hot it had to have been in that booth if a gush of 90 degree air felt like a cool breeze.

Sebastian dragged Kurt out into the open, squinting into the bright, white sunlight that blinded them both.

Their exit from the booth was met with hooting and hollering, whistles, catcalls, and a roar of thunderous applause.

Kurt’s vision was slow to recover and he was grateful for that. He was already glowing red to his roots and barely able to walk.

Sebastian, however, calmer in the face of a crisis than Kurt had ever been, tossed Kurt over his in a fireman’s carry and sprinted through the crowd.

“Out of my way! Out of my way!” he called as he ran, though Kurt could distinctly hear the sound of a few high-fives being given along the way.

“Did you grab the pictures?” Kurt asked, hiding his face, on the brink of tears.

“Yup,” Sebastian said with a laugh. “They look great!”

Kurt’s head snapped up and he blinked his vision clear in enough time to catch the last few images scrolling across the screen, separated by a series of circa-1980s cut-aways and dissolves, of his own contorted face, mouth open, eyes rolled back in his head, in the throes of his sweaty orgasm. Bystanders snickered, turning and pointing at the retreating couple as they connected the face filling the screen with the man currently being carried away.

Sebastian’s face, however, was nowhere to be seen.

“It…it’s just me!” he stammered in horror. “The camera only caught me!”

“I’m afraid so,” Sebastian said, swallowing his laugh and blowing through the exit of the fair before someone could think of contacting security.

“Ho-how many pictures were there?” Kurt asked, not sure he wanted the answer.

“Twelve,” Sebastian said, and this time he had to laugh. “We sure got that kid’s money’s worth.”

Kurt smacked Sebastian’s shoulder hard, and kept smacking him until they reached the car.

“What the fuck, Kurt?” Sebastian dropped Kurt on his feet and unlocked the car door.

“Sebastian!” Kurt cried. “A crowd of kids and parents just saw twelve pictures of my ‘o’ face!”

Sebastian smirked, putting a hand on Kurt’s shoulder and pushing him gently into the car.

“They should consider themselves lucky, babe,” Sebastian said with a wink. “It _is_ pretty spectacular.”

Sebastian closed the door and rounded to his side. He got into the driver’s seat and found Kurt sitting back in his seat with his head buried in his hands.

“This is the absolute worst thing that has ever happened to me,” Kurt whined, shaking his head back and forth.

“Hey!” Sebastian griped, starting the car. He pressed the gas pedal and let the car purr in idle before shifting to drive and heading out of the parking lot. “I think you’re forgetting the real victim here.”

Kurt turned his head quickly to face Sebastian, glowering indignantly, a bitter grimace on his tear-stained face.

“And who would that be?” Kurt sniffled. “Those poor children whose innocence I just ripped from them?”

“No,” Sebastian said, pulling onto the highway. “Me! I’m still starving and I didn’t get my turkey leg.”


	113. A Tale of Ambien and The Home Shopping Network

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kurt doesn’t like it when his boyfriend goes on lengthy business trips, so he takes an Ambien to help him sleep.
> 
> Inspiration for this comes from the Glee Collage Fest prompt 'sleep, dreams, and nightmares' and Chris Colfer’s revelation that he sometimes sleep shops. Rated M. (This is a future fic that assumes that Kurt and Sebastian didn’t meet in high school. They met as adults.)

Kurt didn’t sleep well when Sebastian went away on his monthly business trips. Kurt knew these trips came with the job, but that didn’t mean he had to like them. Kurt didn’t like being alone in the penthouse. He didn’t like eating alone, he didn’t like showering alone, and mostly he didn’t like sleeping alone. He detested it so much that he couldn’t even sleep in their bed without his boyfriend there. It was too cold without him. Sebastian generated heat like a furnace and Kurt loved it. It eliminated the need for pesky pajamas, even during the winter. Without him, Kurt had to resort to sweats and sweaters (preferably Sebastian’s so that he could be wrapped up in his scent).

There were also too many pillows without his boyfriend there to steal them from underneath Kurt’s head in the middle of the night. He tried sleeping in the bed for the first night that Sebastian spent away, but no matter how he twisted or turned, how many different angles he tried, no matter what combination of pillows/blankets/comforters he used, he couldn’t seem to find a comfortable position. Out of desperation, he even broke out Bruce, his old boyfriend pillow, but that didn’t help at all (probably because Bruce was still resentful that Kurt tossed him aside for a _real_ man. They had been exclusive, after all).

So Kurt resorted to sleeping in the living room on the sofa when Sebastian went away. He would watch late night television and sip hot cocoa with peppermint, waiting for Sebastian to call. After they talked, sometimes into the early morning, Kurt would take an Ambien to help him knock out for a couple of hours.

This was how Kurt Hummel survived Sebastian being away.

Sebastian’s most recent business trip, however, promised to be a nightmare for Kurt, Ambien or no. He was negotiating an extremely important takeover of a company whose home base was in London. Between meetings and reassignments and all the legal paperwork that went along with buying out a business, he would be gone for almost a month.

There wasn’t enough late night television and cocoa in the world that was going to make not having Sebastian with him for a whole month okay.

Kurt didn’t let his misery show, and Sebastian didn’t let on that he knew. They just enjoyed each other to the fullest for the three days before his flight. When Sebastian finally left, Kurt watched from the living room window as the car service drove his boyfriend away.

Then he sat on the floor and cried.

The days without Sebastian weren’t the hard part. Kurt had plenty to occupy his time. He was designing a new line and preparing for Fashion Week. He was a featured designer at one of the many exclusive preview shows. His new onslaught of responsibilities involved plenty of PR at Vogue which meant time spent with his ex-fairy Godmother, Isabelle Wright.

It was the nights Kurt found difficult to handle. He ended up falling into a routine of watching _America’s Next Top Model_ re-runs until Sebastian called, and then some pretty explicit phone sex, a hot shower, and an Ambien to see him through till morning when he got up and started the cycle all over again. He was pretty productive with the moments in between, keeping his tablet beneath his pillow on the couch and sketching new ideas when they popped into his head. Ambien had the side-effect of giving him some massively crazy dreams, and after seeing a couple of his more eye-opening designs – a lot of them more suited for the bedroom than anywhere else – he felt he might have a new hook on something he hadn’t tried to design before.

Lingerie. Specifically, leather lingerie.

Other than being a little hazy first thing in the morning, he felt he was handling things pretty well.

A few days before Sebastian was scheduled to come home, boxes started to arrive. At first, Kurt thought they were from Sebastian – presents his boyfriend had sent ahead before his arrival so that he wouldn’t have to juggle bringing them home on the plane. But the box Kurt signed for had a return address label from HSN _After Dark_. Kurt scrunched his nose when he looked at it. Then his brow furrowed when he noticed that the next three boxes – each one bigger than the previous one – were also from HSN _After Dark_.

Kurt was definitely no stranger to The Home Shopping Network, but he swore it off after his last purchase of the entire Richard Simmons _Sweating to the Oldies_ Collection, and he hadn’t bought anything else since.

Kurt was determined that the purchases had to be a mistake, that someone must have gotten a hold of his credit card number and ordered a bunch of shit, but then why would it come to Sebastian’s penthouse? Unless this was some stupid practical joke.

He didn’t have the time to deal with it right away, even though he knew that identity theft was a serious crime and that he should cancel his credit cards immediately, but with his line almost finished and Sebastian coming home, he had too many other things to worry about.

Somewhere between emailing a revised itinerary to Isabelle and putting the final touches on Sebastian’s coming home dinner (smoked salmon steak, roasted fingerling potatoes with red peppers, and a chocolate mousse for dessert), Kurt remembered the boxes that had swiftly become a small pyramid in the corner of the bedroom. Sebastian would be home in a little under two hours and Kurt didn’t want them cluttering up the space. Everything had to be perfect, and brown cardboard boxes took away from the romantic ambience he was trying to achieve. Besides, he was far too curious to know what was actually in them. He grabbed a small-ish one and sat down on the end of the bed. He sliced through the tape and was greeted by a flurry of packaging peanuts. He huffed at HSN’s overuse of the environmentally unsound polystyrene material and silently praised himself for his decision to cut all ties with the company.

After digging through the mess, he found an invoice for whatever was still hidden inside. On the top he saw his own name and address, along with the last four digits of his credit card number. Under the contents section he saw the words ‘Mighty Max’ and some numbers that meant nothing…except for the price - $119.95.

“Hmm…” Kurt muttered, grimacing when a tidal wave of packaging peanuts fell onto the floor, “sounds like a blender, maybe…”

When Kurt finally lifted the blister package and brought it up to his face, his eyes went wide.

This was definitely not a blender.

What he held in his hands was the largest dildo he had ever laid his eyes on. It was blue and translucent, with frightening looking ribs and ridges. All around it just screamed, “This is going to hurt!”

“Holy hell!” Kurt grumbled, shoving the sex toy back in its box and reaching for another package. He sliced the box open quickly, not caring about the mess the packaging material made on the carpet, not even bothering to look at the invoice, and pulled out the contents one at a time – another dildo, a vibrating butt plug, and about half a dozen mesh jock straps, each in a different color.

“What the fuck?”

For a second, Kurt entertained the idea that this was all an elaborate prank by Sebastian. The studded leather collar and the testicle cuffs he found in the next box struck him as something Sebastian would definitely buy, but before he called up his boyfriend and ripped him a new one, he would try his claws out on HSN for even approving all these purchases without his permission.

Kurt moved to the living room and sat down on the sofa with the invoice in hand, ready to make the call and hand some poor customer service representative their ass. He entered the number into his cell phone and pressed send with all the righteous indignation he could muster. Immediately the number came up from his contacts with the name ‘Home Shopping Network’ already programmed in.

Kurt immediately disconnected the call, confused as to why he would have this particular number programmed in his cell. He didn’t even own his iPhone when he made his last HSN purchase.

He checked his phone log and his mouth dropped. Between the hours of ten thirty p.m. and three a.m. it was literally call after call to the Home Shopping Network. Kurt’s heart started to pound. This had happened to him before during college when he took Ambien because he was so stressed out over finals he couldn’t sleep. He would make ‘Ambien purchases’, buying stuff while he was slightly conscious but loopy, not remembering a thing the next morning. Then weeks later he’d get boxes in the mail filled with the most asinine shit, like a portrait of Marie Antoinette and corkscrews in the shape of men posed in suggestive positions.

Kurt raced to the bedroom and tore through the remaining boxes one at a time, each one filled to bursting with dildos and vibrators, butt plugs of all shapes and sizes, and a variety of fetish-style clothing – assless chaps, mesh muscle shirts, chain halter tops, even a few pairs of liquid-look thigh high stockings.

“Oh dear God,” Kurt whimpered, holding up a string of extra-large anal beads in his shaking hands. “Oh dear sweet non-existent God.”

Kurt looked at the digital clock on the table by his bed.

_11:25_

Sebastian would be home soon, and believe it or not, this was not the kind of homecoming Kurt had planned. Yes, they had been dating over a year now, and yes, Sebastian had seen most of Kurt’s freak flags fly, but this…this was going to be a little difficult to explain.

He had to clean this up, but morbid curiosity drew him back to the living room and the flat-screen TV. All those calls were made between 10:30 and 3:00, which meant the program was on now.

What exactly did HSN _After Dark_ look like without the Ambien goggles?

Kurt sat on the sofa and reached for the remote. He switched on the TV and surprise of surprises, it was already on the HSN channel.

Suddenly, Kurt couldn’t remember the last time he had watched anything else. Even though his normal reality show line-up was a part of his usual nighttime routine, he simply couldn’t recall a single episode from the last week or so.

The segue screen had a black background filled with images of multi-colored vibrators, and in the foreground, a woman scantily clad in lace lingerie, with her head thrown back and her eyes shut, lips parted in a gasp of ecstasy. The words ‘HSN _After Dark_ ’ blinked in a neon-light font over the whole scene. That image slid away, cutting back to the program already in progress. After the current item up for sale (a ‘Perfect Positioning Pillow’) dissolved into the background, a bubbly blonde woman in an incongruous baby pink pant suit came into view and addressed the camera.

“So, that was sale number 150,000! That’s 150,000 of that item sold, so please call in now to get your own Perfect Positioning Pillow while supplies last.” The lady looked down at the gold watch on her wrist, and then beamed back up at the camera. “Well, it’s about 11:30,” she announced, smiling brightly with the insane look of a woman who’s been hawking useless products on late-night TV for far too long, “and that’s the time when HSN _After Dark’s_ favorite repeat customer usually gives us a call. So, Mr. Kurt Hummel of Manhattan, New York, give us a ring! We’re waiting for you.”

Kurt jumped at the sound of his name, switching off the television and tossing the remote to the opposite end of the couch for good measure.

“Oh my God!” he muttered, putting his hands to his head and grabbing fistfuls of his hair. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God…”

Not only had he been sleep shopping and spending hundreds of dollars on raunchy sex toys from a cheesy X-rated after-hours home shopping show, they had just given him a shout-out…on LIVE television.

How many people heard that? They had just sold 150,000 of those stupid pillows, so at least 150,000 people, right?

 _Shitshitshitshitshit_!

“What if word gets out?” he argued with himself, reasoning with the empty air, needing to hear his thoughts out loud. “How many Kurt Hummels are there living in Manhattan, anyway? There has to be a few. They can’t automatically pin this on me just because I’m an up-and-coming designer about to be featured for the first time in Michael Kors’s New York Fashion Week Preview Show _ohmyGodohmyGodohmyGodohmyGod_!”

What if Isabelle found out?

Well, there he didn’t really have a problem. She’d probably laugh like a hyena for about four hours and then tell him that it was hot.

His mind backpedaled to the mess in the bedroom.

Sebastian would be home any minute!

He needed to act quickly.

He needed to box up those God forsaken toys before Sebastian got home.

He had to hide them, and then send them back first thing in the morning. Then he could flush the rest of his Ambien down the toilet and forget that this whole thing ever happened.

But first, he had to run to the bathroom and throw up.

It was amazing how long it took Kurt to empty his stomach completely, but with every heave that took him away from hiding his illicit purchases, he reassured himself with the memory of packaging up 115 Christmas presents in 32 boxes a good fifteen minutes before the UPS man arrived during what was affectionately labeled ‘The Chrism-Apocalypse of 2013’.

By the time he was done vomiting, the overall plan was to just shove everything in the corner of the closet with a comforter over it until Sebastian fell asleep.

It would have worked, too. Kurt could have done that and been in the clear if Sebastian’s plane hadn’t landed early, if the car service hadn’t been sitting at the curb waiting for him, if the traffic hadn’t been light and they didn’t catch every green the moment they entered the city.

But luck was entirely on Sebastian’s side, which meant for Kurt it was nowhere to be seen.

Kurt stumbled out of the bathroom, a little weak and woozy from being sick, and found Sebastian grinning from ear to ear, looking through the contents of the boxes open on the bed, chuckling with each new revelation. He already had several of the vibrators, a few mesh jock straps, and a pair of leather shackles laid out on the mattress. He looked up as Kurt entered the room, holding up a huge dildo covered in what the package described as ‘stimulating and massaging bumps’, a teasing and hungry glimmer in his gorgeous green eyes. Kurt stared at him, face pale, gripping onto the door jamb for dear life.

“Kurt,” Sebastian said with an eyebrow raised, “you’ve got some explaining to do.”


	114. For Love or Honor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kurt takes it upon himself to fight a duel to defend his sister-in-law Rachel’s honor against Hunter Clarington. Warning for mention of major character death (Finn, Burt, and Carole) which all happened in the past.

Kurt straightens his coat, watching the seams fall into place. He looks at his reflection in the mirror and sighs. It’s a fine suit – a beautifully tailored black brocade coat (designed and constructed by none other than his own talented hands) over one of his best dress shirts. He doesn’t relish the idea of getting blood all over it – his or someone else’s, but it would be a fine suit to die in, if the situation warrants it.

“No, please!” Rachel cries, stumbling over the long hem of her dress to reach her best friend. Kurt moves quickly and catches the pregnant woman in his arms. “Don’t do this, Kurt! Please! I’m begging you!”

“Oh, Rachel…honey,” Kurt shushes, smoothing a hand down the waves of her long, dark hair, “sweetie, worry not. It will be over and done with in a matter of minutes, and then I’ll come home.”

“But, he’ll kill you!” Rachel sobs, her chest heaving beneath her maternity corset.

“Shhh…” Kurt continues to soothe his friend. “Please, Rachel, be calm. Think about the baby.”

“And what of the baby’s father?” Rachel whimpers, looking up to meet Kurt’s somber blue eyes. “What about Finn? Hunter’s men have already killed him, and they will kill you, too.”

“All the more reason why I must do this,” Kurt explains, walking a trembling Rachel over to a nearby sofa and setting her gently down in it. “How many times has that scoundrel Hunter Clarington tried to have you for his own? And Finn – poor precious Finn – set upon by five armed men in defense of your honor.” Kurt sighs at the thought of his stepbrother, alone in the dark, trying to defend himself against so many men with swords when he himself was without.

His brother was a decent fighter, but he didn’t have a chance – set upon without any warning. Hunter made sure of that.

Now, Kurt has no choice. He needs to end this – for Rachel, for Finn, and for their baby.

“But, we can pay him?” Rachel reasons. “Surely he has a price. All men do.”

“Not Hunter. He has more money than he needs,” Kurt says. He’s ashamed to admit that he himself had thought of that, but no. Hunter does not delight in money. He has almost too much of it. What he enjoys is sport – and his sort of sport includes humiliation and pain. For so long he had haunted Rachel’s steps. For so long he wanted her for his own. When she chose a middle merchant’s son over his vast wealth, he was furious, and he made it his sole goal to make Rachel’s life hell on earth.

Kurt looks down at Rachel who has been gazing up at him hopefully through his long, contemplative silence.

“My dear,” he says, dropping a kiss into her rose-scented locks, “this is an honor duel. One man against one man. I know most of Hunter’s hired blades, and I dare say not a one is as good as me. One on one, I can best them all.”

Kurt hopes he sounds convincing – more so than he feels.

“But, you yourself have just found love, Kurt,” Rachel begs.

“All the more reason for me to return without a scratch,” Kurt assures her.

Kurt wishes she wouldn’t have mentioned him.

 _Sebastian_.

Going through with this duel is hard enough without having to think about losing Sebastian.

What a beautiful man to drop into his life out of the blue at such an ill and inopportune time.

Kurt already knows without being reminded that it is of Sebastian’s gorgeous green eyes and his sinful lips whispering so many sweet promises that Kurt will be thinking of if today he meets his end.

Kurt hugs Rachel tight in his arms.

“I love you, Rachel Berry,” he says with all of the affection of a brother for a sister. “I love you so very much. Please, remember that, no matter what happens today.”

“Oh, Kurt,” Rachel wails. “I love you, too. Don’t leave me! Whatever you do, whatever it takes, you have to live! Don’t leave me and my baby alone!”

“I promise,” Kurt says, motioning to the nurse who enters the room at the sound of Rachel’s despondent cry, “whatever it takes, I will win this.” Kurt pulls away and looks into his best friend’s watery brown eyes. “I will come home to you.”

“I will hold you to that,” Rachel says, placing a palm to Kurt’s cheek and a kiss to his lips. “I will hold you to that promise.”

The nurse helps Rachel to her feet and leads her from the room, whispering soothing sentiments that only Rachel can hear, though Kurt knows them all. They are the same platitudes everyone has been spoon feeding the poor girl from the moment Hunter first tried to lay his claim on her, and then again when poor Finn was killed. Nobody wants to hurt her more but the cold truth is that this is not a perfect world, nor is it kind or caring. People can be cruel and heartless and self-serving, and today on the snow that covers the cathedral courtyard, Kurt Hummel may very well die defending her honor...and there would be no one left to keep the wolves away from her and her newborn baby.

Kurt looks once more in the mirror, standing up straight and shrugging off the weight that has begun to sag his shoulders. He meets his own blue eyes, glaring at his image until they turn ice cold and murderous.

“I am Kurt Hummel,” he says in a clear, steady voice to his own visage, “and no matter what, I will win. Come what may, I will return to Hudson Hall alive.”

Kurt fixes a mask over his face, obscuring all but his mouth and his eyes. It is a pale blue color like the peaceful sky above, a reminder of all the loved ones he has lost who now look down on him from the heavens above: his mother, his father, his brother, and most recently, his stepmother. He throws a cape over his shoulders and picks up the narrow, mahogany coffin that holds his dueling sword. Alone and without another word of farewell (as faith dictates who lives and who dies), he leaves the house of his sister-in-law quickly in hopes of making a speedy return.

Kurt opts for the walk and not his carriage as he makes his way to the square, to stretch his legs and settle his nerves. He has no doubts in his abilities, but he doesn’t look forward to the prospect of taking a life…and, of course, there’s always that chance that he will fall.

But he doesn’t dwell on that. He can already hear Hunter and his goons chortling from the courtyard just inside the church gates, and he focuses his mind on other things to shut those foul voices out: on his stance, on the weight of his steel, on the flexibility of his wrist, on the soles of his shoes gripping the icy ground. He hates fighting in snow - he always has. He puts a hand over his purse and feels its weight - just enough money to pay the vicar for overseeing this whole affair…and for bloodying his courtyard.

Kurt keeps his eyes cast down as he comes upon the scene, the voices quieting at his approach, eyes watching him and lips curled into sneers that he can feel on his skin. He refuses to look at them, or their champion, as is custom. The mob of four villains have occupied the north corner, so he will take the south, and waiting for him there is his sole witness, his stepbrother’s best man, Noah Puckerman.

“Kurt,” the man says, already his voice apologetic. Noah embraces Kurt, and Kurt hugs him back. “You know, it really should be me fighting this duel for Berry, not you.”

“Truly,” Kurt says with a chuckle, letting the man go and looking into his eyes, “and what would I say to your wife, Quinn, and your daughter, Beth, when I carried your bloody corpse back to your home?”

“My skill with a sword is not so bad,” Noah says, affronted at Kurt’s joke.

“No, but you could still die, my friend,” Kurt says. “And… _you_ _would_ die.”

Kurt and Noah laugh, holding each other still. A mocking laugh echoes from the opposite end of the courtyard.

“If you ladies are done cuddling, can we get this duel started?” a sour voice taunts. “I have a whore waiting for me at home and I’d really like to get back to her before my wife returns from her mother’s.”

Kurt rolls his eyes at the faceless voice and its crass comments. It’s a voice he’s never heard before - another expendable hired man rallying to Hunter’s cause.

Kurt wonders if this is the man he will have the pleasure of killing today.

A comforting hand rests on Kurt’s shoulders, and immediately he is brought to mind of Sebastian the last time he saw him – his white shirt open at the collar, lips swollen from a dozen kisses, smiling, laughing at the blush that rose to Kurt’s cheeks when he told Kurt that he loved him – that he could see loving him for the rest of his life.

He turns with hope in his eyes only to see a warm, aged face looking back at him - the vicar, saying a prayer on Kurt’s behalf, but also waiting for his payment.

Kurt puts down his sword box on a nearby ledge and reaches into his pocket to pull out his purse.

“I deeply apologize for whatever happens here today,” Kurt says with a slight bow of his head, handing over the silk tied sack of gold coins. “I hope this is enough for the trouble we are causing you.”

“Bless you, my son,” the man says. To his benefit, he doesn’t dishonor himself by counting the money in front of Kurt. “May God have mercy on your soul.”

“I pray that he does,” Kurt says with a smile, watching the man turn and toddle away through the snow.

“Well, I guess that’s that,” Noah says, replacing the vicar’s hand with his own. “They’ll want to start now.”

Kurt nods. He undoes the tie of his cape and Noah takes it from his shoulders. Kurt opens the box that holds his sword and lifts it from its velvet nest. He looks down the edge of shimmering steel, and as it catches the sunlight and winks, he steels himself.

He needs to win this and have it be over so he can get back to his life…and his love.

With his head bowed, Noah leads Kurt to the center of the courtyard where Hunter waits with his champion already prepared to duel. Both men stare at the ground at their feet as the vicar recites one last prayer – on the swordsman, on the company, on those who have gathered on the outskirts to jeer and witness and place their bets. Kurt hears the words but they mean nothing to him. He is the master of his own destiny. No kindly old grandfather has ever guided his steps, though he has to admit to speaking to him from time to time, just in case he does exist. He focuses on the clean white snow, holding the image of its glittering purity before it becomes tainted and grotesque.

He will win this duel.

He will avenge his brother.

He will return to his sister.

And he will ask Sebastian for his hand in marriage.

His life will be set.

 _He_ will do this. No invisible God will do this for him.

“So, are we going to do this, princess,” the champion behind the other mask on Hunter’s side of the courtyard says, “or do you need another moment to stare at the ground?”

Kurt swallows hard.

_What?_

That voice. That voice hits Kurt’s ears and steals away every last breath.

It stops his heart and freezes his blood as if it has already been spilled in the snow.

Kurt feels his body shake and his knees go weak.

_Oh, no. Oh, please, God, no…_

Kurt can’t think of anything to say, so he says the only word that matters to him.

“Sebastian?”

The other man’s taunting chuckle stops.

Two heads snap up.

Two pairs of wide, stunned eyes meet.

Two masks fall to the ground.

The look on Sebastian’s mortified face is a perfect match to Kurt’s own look of horror.

Standing beside his champion, Hunter grins like the bloodthirsty jackal he is - cruel and vicious and satisfied with his plan.

“Oh,” he says, feigning surprise, “I see you know one another.”


	115. Planning Ahead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this was in response to a prompt I can’t find at the moment, but basically it was ‘Kurt and Sebastian attending a college fair (trying to pick out a college)’. So, I hope you like it. Warnings for language.

Kurt picks up a thick, glossy covered brochure and frowns. Five insanely enthusiastic teenagers stare up at him from the cover. It’s uncanny how their eyes follow him as he moves the brochure back and forth in front of his face.

He shudders.

The bubbly quintet is posed strategically in front of an aging red-brick building with the name _Dartmouth_ emblazoned above them. Their arms are linked around each other’s shoulders as they lean forward to smile into the camera lens. On the cover of the brochure, it’s a perfect fall day; the sky is blue with a few token clouds hovering half in and half out of the shot. The diverse group of students is wearing coordinating cable knit sweaters – similar patterns but different complimentary colors. It’s all so stereotypical ‘New England chic’ that it makes Kurt want to hurl.

“Seb, how many of these kids do you think are gay?” Kurt asks, thrusting the brochure into Sebastian’s hands. Sebastian looks at the cover and raises an eyebrow.

“The girl on the far left definitely,” he says, “annnnnd the guy in the middle.” Sebastian scoffs. “In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen him in an issue of _Flesh and Hot_.”

Kurt looks back at the brochure and squints.

“That issue you keep under the head of your bed?”

“Yup,” Sebastian says, popping the ‘p’.

“Oh,” Kurt answers. “I thought he looked familiar.” Kurt stares down at the image and frowns. “Kind of hard to tell without your signature cum stain all over his face.”

A few unfortunate bystanders who heard Kurt’s comment hiss in shock, but Sebastian chuckles, taking Kurt’s hand and pulling him reluctantly along.

“I don’t understand why you dragged me here anyway,” Kurt whines, dropping the brochure back down on the host table with a ‘thunk’. “I know _exactly_ where I’m going to college.”

“Kurt,” Sebastian says in that tone he reserves for when he feels his boyfriend is being narrow-minded and stupid – the tone of voice where Kurt can actually hear Sebastian’s eyes roll in their sockets, “you can’t pin all your hopes on one college. You need to have backups.”

“At least _I_ have a college in mind,” Kurt grumbles, glaring down at his feet as Sebastian stops in front of another table.

“Ugh! Let’s not do this again,” Sebastian groans, grabbing a brochure and stuffing it into the absolutely massive plastic bag he was handed at the front door when they arrived. Kurt refused his, claiming that it clashed with his outfit. “You want me to find a college? Fine. I’m here, aren’t I? This is where you go to find a college.” Sebastian walks to the next table, blindly grabs a brochure, and shoves it into his bag.

“Uh, Sebastian?” Kurt tugs at Sebastian’s arm as his boyfriend storms off from the confused group of student representatives watching them.

“What?” Sebastian snaps.

“Nothing,” Kurt says, stifling a grin, “it’s just that I’m pretty sure that brochure you took was for an all-women’s college.”

Sebastian stops and opens his bag, pulling out the last brochure he tossed in.

“Columbia College in South Carolina,” he mutters, reading the caption on the cover, “all-women’s liberal arts…what the fuck?” Sebastian looks back at the table where three tittering young women smile bashfully and wave. “Dalton’s an all-boy’s school. Why would they invite…oh forget it.” Sebastian tosses the brochure back into his bag with a shrug and keeps going, completing his first circuit down the rows of tables and booths.

The next five minutes of silence don’t go unnoticed by Sebastian, who turns to make sure that Kurt is still following behind him, which he is, eyes downcast, scuffing the gymnasium floor with the thick soles of his white Doc Martens.

“You know, I’m right about you applying for second choice schools,” Sebastian says, “whether you want to listen to me or not.”

“So, you don’t think I’m good enough to get into NYADA?” Kurt pops his head up and glares at Sebastian.

“Don’t be dramatic, babe.” Sebastian takes a pamphlet from a severe looking man with thinning hair and wire-rimmed glasses. The man starts his spiel when he sees them approach, but Sebastian walks on past him, leaving Kurt to offer the disgruntled man a small smile and a mouthed _sorry_. “You never know what could happen,” Sebastian continues. “What if they decide they have all the uptight boy sopranos they need?”

“You just lost your blowjob for this afternoon,” Kurt mutters angrily, brushing by Sebastian and taking the lead.

“As if,” Sebastian counters, shrugging off Kurt’s sour attitude. “Why don’t you apply for NYU? Isn’t that the trendy school to go to in New York nowadays? Didn’t Lady Gaga go there? You know how much you love Gaga.”

Kurt bounces the idea around in his head, not particularly thrilled with the fact that he’s letting himself be persuaded.

“Yeah, well, she dropped out, and that’s not the point,” Kurt says, his resolve resurging.

“Then, what _is_ the point?” Sebastian huffs, readjusting the weight of his bag, which is straining in the center to hold the wealth of brochures, pamphlets, and odd giveaway pens he has gathered. “Because you’re getting irritable really early this month.”

Kurt stands to his full height and crosses his arms over his chest.

“First of all, I would like to say I am offended on behalf of all my female friends at your blatantly sexist remark,” Kurt says. “And second of all, the point is that you don’t want to tell me where you’re going to school because…”

Sebastian narrows his eyes at Kurt as Kurt chokes around the rest of his sentence.

“Because…” Sebastian repeats, drawing the word out, waiting for Kurt to finish.

“Because…you’re going to break up with me, aren’t you?”

Sebastian’s shoulders slump. He rolls his head on his neck with a groan and pulls Kurt aside, not eager to have this discussion in full view of the entire gymnasium.

“That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?” Kurt mutters on as Sebastian pulls him to a more private corner. “That’s why you’re getting brochures for basically every school under the sun that _isn’t_ in New York, right?”

“Kurt…” Sebastian says evenly, but Kurt rambles some more.

“You’re not even willing to try a long distance relationship, are you? “

“Kurt…” Sebastian tries again, setting his heavy bag down at his feet, knowing this is going to take a while.

“Of course,” Kurt says, throwing his arms up, “I mean, what else should I expect from the boy who didn’t want to be burdened with a boyfriend to begin with? I knew this was going to happen…”

“Kurt!” Sebastian roars through his teeth, silencing Kurt effectively. Kurt stops talking and turns away, avoiding his boyfriend’s condescending eyes. “We’re here because my parents want me to prove that I’m serious about picking a college, and you’re here with me because they wouldn’t believe that I actually came here if I went alone. Apparently, they think that you’re the responsible one…”

“I can’t imagine why,” Kurt mutters under his breath.

“But the truth is…” Sebastian takes a deep breath in and lets it go, “I’ve already picked a college out. I…I just haven’t told them about it yet.”

Kurt perks up a bit and turns back to face Sebastian.

“Wh-what? Why not?”

“Because, my dad’s a Harvard legacy, so he wants me to go there. Meanwhile, my mom got her degree at Yale, and she really would like me to go there. It’s kind of hard to tell them that I’m not interested in either school.”

“B-but…why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because you can’t keep a secret to save your life,” Sebastian explains. “You and my mom are thick as thieves. You guys would go out shopping for shoes and you’d spill the whole thing.”

Kurt decides to forego being offended this once at Sebastian’s accusation that Kurt can’t keep a secret…especially an important one like this seems to be.

“So…where are you going?” Kurt asks.

Sebastian looks down at his shoes and chews his lip. He stalls for a moment, running a hand through his hair in frustration, obviously uncomfortable with the subject at hand. Kurt doesn’t want to back him into a corner. The good boyfriend in him wants to backpedal and tell Sebastian that it doesn’t matter. It’s Sebastian’s life, Sebastian’s choice.

But Kurt really wants to know.

He wants to know how much longer he’s going to have a boyfriend.

Sebastian sighs, his eyes flicking up to the expectant expression on Kurt’s face as he waits, hoping to be let in on the secret.

“I’m going to NYU,” Sebastian says.

It takes a second before Kurt puts two and two together, but when he does, he claps his hands and throws himself into Sebastian’s arms.

“Now don’t get any starry eyed, romantic ideas,” Sebastian says, planting a kiss carefully into Kurt’s meticulously styled hair. “I’m not going there because of you. I’m going there because it’s an excellent school. It just so happens to be close to where you’re going.”

“OhmyGodohmyGodohmyGodohmyGod,” Kurt murmurs excitedly without taking a single breath. He bounces on the balls of his feet and Sebastian laughs, trying to rein him in. Kurt stops bouncing all of a sudden and looks up at Sebastian with wide, worried eyes. “But, Bas, what happens if we break up?”

“Well…” Sebastian puts a finger beneath Kurt’s chin and fixes him with a sincere look, “then I’ll still be going to an excellent school.” Sebastian kisses Kurt on the forehead and smiles. “But you’ll have to leave town.”

Kurt gasps, swatting at Sebastian’s hand, chasing him when a laughing Sebastian recoils.

“Seriously,” Sebastian says, reclaiming his bulging bag and taking Kurt’s arm, “having a moody ex hanging around would really put a damper on my social life, and I hear college boys in New York are fine as shit.”

“Yeah?” Kurt grouses, trying to wrench his arm out of Sebastian’s grasp. “How did you hear that?”

“Well, you’re going to be there, right?” Sebastian pulls Kurt along and this time Kurt goes willingly.

“Right,” Kurt admits, turning his head to hide the blush on his cheeks.

“And I’m going to be there,” Sebastian says with a smug grin. “How much fucking hotter can you get than that?”


	116. Pillow Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kurt comes home from a business trip early to surprise his fiance, and finds Sebastian in bed with someone he never expected. Futurefic, angst, hurt/comfort, fluff, romance.

Kurt dragged his suitcase the last five feet to the door of his and Sebastian’s penthouse, limping the heavy piece of luggage across the hardwood floor, thoroughly exhausted but elated over his devious plan.

He had been so excited when Isabelle Wright told him he would be accompanying her for the European leg of her book tour. She had written her memoirs and apparently Kurt featured very prominently in the later chapters. It was the opportunity of a lifetime, but it was also the longest he had ever been away from his fiancé since they had gotten engaged. Kurt knew from the start that he wouldn’t be able to stand not seeing Sebastian for so long, so he made Sebastian agree to join them for the last week in Paris. Sebastian had ribbed Kurt for weeks when Kurt made him swear up and down almost daily that he would fly out.

“It’s just a month, babe,” Sebastian had taunted with his permanently implanted smug grin on his face. “You mean to tell me that you can’t be without the D for four short weeks? I mean, I know you have a flesh jack and a dildo the size of a ballistic missile. I’m sure you’ll be fine…no, wait. I take it back. I’d miss me, too.”

Kurt knew that Sebastian loved to tease him, but it still bugged him that Sebastian didn’t seem to be bothered at all that they would be apart. It was almost like Kurt could be there or not be there. It honestly didn’t seem to matter to Sebastian at all.

“You’ll miss me so fucking hard that you’ll come home early,” Sebastian said to Kurt at the airport while he waited to board his plane. “I know it.”

“Yeah?” Kurt said. “What about you?”

“Me?” Sebastian said with a laugh. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

While Kurt was gone, they texted and they Skyped every chance they got. Kurt always ended their calls by telling Sebastian he wished they were together.

Sebastian always laughed it off with an almost half-hearted _I love you_.

The first two weeks went by slowly for Kurt, a constant knot growing in his stomach even though he tried his best to keep himself busy and keep his mind off Sebastian, but the more that Kurt talked to Sebastian via Skype, the more he started to worry. Sebastian started to become distant. Their conversations got shorter and shorter, and Sebastian didn’t seem all that ecstatic to see him when he did call.

Kurt had been on business trips before - so had Sebastian - but never for this length of time. He knew it would be difficult, but he didn’t imagine things between them would change like this.

Like Sebastian said, it was only one month.

Without letting Isabelle in on all the details, Kurt managed to finagle leaving the tour in Germany to come back to New York, planning on flying out with Sebastian to Paris together.

Kurt unlocked the door to the penthouse slowly and crept in, taking care not to wake Sebastian and ruin the surprise. He left his luggage inside the door and kicked off his shoes, padding across the vacant living room and into the master bedroom.

All of the lights were off in their bedroom. Kurt peered into the darkness but all he could make out was a large lump inhabiting their bed. It took Kurt’s eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness, but when they finally did, when he could finally discern the location of legs and body and arms, he became paralyzed.

There his shirtless fiancé lay in bed…in the arms of another man.

Kurt couldn’t breathe. He sucked in air quickly through his trembling lips but it wasn’t enough to fill his lungs – not by a long shot. Kurt hiccupped, on the verge of hyperventilating, but he didn’t cry. He was furious. He was heartbroken and furious. He stormed over to the bed, ready to bear his claws and tear both men apart. He was working on pulling off his engagement ring, ready to wake Sebastian up by throwing the Godforsaken thing in the face of his cheating, traitorous fiancé and his skanky paramour. He got as close as he dared, taking aim.

Kurt stopped with his arm raised to strike. His face scrunched. He tilted his head from side to side. Then he smiled.

He slipped the ring back on his finger.

“Bruce?” Kurt tugged at the boyfriend arm pillow, waking Sebastian from his sleep. Sebastian startled, looking up at Kurt with heavy lidded eyes.

“Wh--?” Sebastian murmured, drunk with sleep.

When he realized that Kurt was standing over him with the confiscated boyfriend pillow in his hands, he sobered quickly and sat up straight.

“Uh…K-Kurt!” Sebastian stammered. “You’re home early.”

“Yes,” Kurt said. “Yes, I am.”

Sebastian ran a hand through his unkempt bed hair, doing nothing to smooth out the strands that stuck out all over. He looked at Kurt, his serious demeanor countering Kurt’s efforts not to laugh.

“This isn’t what it looks like.”

“Really?” Kurt said. “Because this looks like you were sleeping with my boyfriend pillow, Bas.” Kurt smacked his fiancé lightly on the arm. “Sebastian, you know Bruce and I are exclusive.”

“Don’t read too much into it,” Sebastian said, finally pulling himself together. “I needed another pillow to raise my head. I was congested as hell.”

Kurt barked out a laugh.

“Do you expect me to buy that?” Kurt asked, tossing Bruce toward the foot of the bed and settling himself down on his usual side of the mattress.

“I don’t give a fuck what you buy,” Sebastian grumbled, flopping back down on the bed.

Kurt curled up against his reluctant fiancé.

“You said that Bruce creeped you out,” Kurt said, toning down the teasing and the sarcasm.

“It does.”

“So…why are you…”

“Because,” Sebastian interrupted with a huff, ”it smells like you.”

Kurt looked confused.

“How can it?” Kurt asked, sitting up to grab Bruce. Putting the pillow up to his nose, he took a sniff. “I haven’t used it in forever.”

Sebastian sighed.

“It smells like you from when we started going out,” Sebastian explained. “When you used to wear Paco Robanne and not that fruity cologne your boss at Vogue gave you.” Kurt left the pillow and snuggled back against Sebastian’s side. This time, he put an arm around Kurt. “You know, when there were no month-long business trips interfering with our lives…interrupting our anniversary.”

The last few words he muttered under his breath so low that Kurt nearly missed them.

Kurt scrunched his nose, shaking his head.

“What anniversary?”

Kurt was the crazy anniversary diva. He had every single one written down on his calendar – first date, first kiss, first time together. He even kept track of some of the more obscure ones like the first time Sebastian ever bought him flowers, the first time he got his coffee order right without asking, the first time he held his hand in public.

How could he have missed one?

“Bas?” Kurt asked softly. “What anniversary?”

Sebastian blew a long breath through his lips.

“It’s…not one I ever told you about,” Sebastian admitted. “I kind of just keep it to myself, and I try to do something special for you without giving you a reason. But we’ve never been apart on that day before, and I didn’t think it would bother me…but then you were gone and I really missed you…”

Sebastian looked at Kurt and Kurt looked back with silently pleading eyes.

“What anniversary?” Kurt asked for a third time, crawling up Sebastian’s body and resting his head on his chest.

Sebastian averted his eyes back up to the shadowy ceiling.

“The anniversary of that first day I saw you at the Lima Bean,” Sebastian said.

Kurt was stunned speechless, and Sebastian rolled his eyes.

“But you…”

“Yes, I was trying to get into Blaine’s pants, but no, I didn’t hate you,” Sebastian said. They had had this debate many, many times before. “And I know I never told you, but it was actually an important moment for me.”

“So, why didn’t you tell me that?” Kurt asked. “After we started dating?”

“I didn’t know how to tell you in a way that didn’t make it sound like a bad line,” Sebastian said, running his fingertips up and down Kurt’s spine over the tailored jacket that he still had on. “I didn’t want to reduce it to an anecdote. Something people would say we could tell our kids later on, because it doesn’t really belong to anyone but me, you know?”

Kurt smiled and nodded.

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I do know.”

Kurt inched closer to Sebastian’s lips and kissed him softly.

“Happy Anniversary,” Kurt whispered against Sebastian’s mouth.

“Happy Anniversary,” Sebastian whispered back.

With a wicked chuckle, Kurt kneeled up on the bed and straddled Sebastian’s hips, unbuttoning his wrinkled jacket.

“So, how do you propose we celebrate this momentous occasion?” he asked, carefully tossing the jacket aside.

Sebastian reached eager hands up to help Kurt with his pants while Kurt attacked the buttons on his even more wrinkled dress shirt.

“I suggest a celebratory fuck,” Sebastian said, bucking up his hips for emphasis.

Kurt made a disappointed noise.

“I thought maybe we could make love,” he said, tossing the shirt to join the jacket.

“Of course we can, babe,” Sebastian said, tugging on Kurt’s pants so he would move and pull them down. “After we fuck, I’m all for making love.”

“What about Bruce?” Kurt threw a look over his shoulder at the abandoned pillow teetering at the foot of the bed. Sebastian pulled Kurt under the covers.

“Babe,” Sebastian said, rolling his fiancé beneath his body, happy to find him already hard, sliding beside his own erection, “eventually you’re going to have to tell him you’re not all that exclusive anymore.”

Before he attacked Kurt’s neck and made his fiancé moan, Sebastian gave the bed a sharp kick and sent Bruce straight to the bedroom floor.

 

 


	117. Defining Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a that I wrote inspired by my Kurt and Sebastian pairing in 'Deliver Me'. You don't have to read that story to get this poem - it's a very general poem.
> 
> Also, it's a poem, so bear that in mind. (Free motion, non rhyming)

Kurt’s love for Sebastian can be overwhelming at times.

It’s blinding and bright,

Full of heat and color.

It never fights to be heard.

It makes itself known in every stitch that he sews,

Every show stopping number that he sings.

Sebastian feels Kurt’s love when Kurt pushes him up against the wall and kisses him,

When he pins him to the floor and mouths over him,

When Kurt’s need outweighs all other wants, and Sebastian has no other choice than to surrender to him.

Sebastian’s love for Kurt is quiet and steady,

A slow simmer beneath Kurt’s uncontrollable burn,

The crystal surface that reflects Kurt’s incomparable light,

It commands attention, not because it yells or screams or shouts,

But because it whispers, and bends everyone to hear it.

Kurt feels it in the arm that wraps securely around his waist,

The hand that slips into his without needing to ask,

The lips that kiss his forehead while he sleeps.

When Kurt is uptight, it’s Sebastian’s hands that melt away the stress.

When Kurt is sad, it’s Sebastian’s arms that shield him from the pain.

When Kurt's nightmares rage, it’s Sebastian’s voice in the dark that pulls him back.

Sometimes Kurt leads and Sebastian follows.

Sometimes Sebastian offers Kurt a hand, and Kurt happily takes it.

Two halves, one whole.

Two souls, one life,

Spent defining love.


	118. Us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This may look like a poem, but that wasn't the intention. I wrote it so that the paragraph would take form and move. All in all I think it's just very sweet. I hope you enjoy it :)

A night spent savoring…

Hours of kissing and touching…

Tension and build up…

Sebastian’s push to Kurt’s pull…

Blurring edges…

Dissolving barriers…

Crossing boundaries…

Sebastian doesn’t end here…

He follows along the lines of Kurt’s body like a river…

Perfect in flow and formation…

They meet together, and they become one…

Kurt’s desire meets Sebastian’s devotion…

Any weakness Sebastian has melts beneath Kurt’s fingers…

Kurt is the kindling that fuels Sebastian’s fire, and Sebastian is ravenous…

Kurt’s whole body is precious…

And Sebastian takes his time relishing its beauty…

But then all too soon, there comes a moment when Sebastian’s heart is no longer his own…

Kurt’s spirit absorbs Sebastian’s, and they mix…

There’s only skin enough for one person’s body…

Their eyes are both blue and green…

And if you could see them from a distance, a Mobius loop is formed…

Sebastian knows that moment…

It’s his favorite treasure…

It’s where he wants to spend the rest of his life…

Where things are simple…

And love is beautiful…

And together is forever…

No separation, no loneliness, and nothing’s forgotten…

Not you or me…

Just _us_ …


	119. My Hero

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From an anon prompt 'Sebastian does something that gets Kurt hurt'. Warning for vague description of injuries, and language.

“I hate you,” Kurt grumbled as best he could through a split lip and a mouthful of cotton.

“You don’t hate me,” Sebastian argued back, sounding way too secure in his own self-confidence to be offended.

“No, I’m pretty sure I do,” Kurt said, shifting in his wheelchair but not turning his sore neck to look at Sebastian, not that he _could_ with the brace holding his head stiffly in place.

“You don’t mean that,” Sebastian replied with copious amounts of condescension as he pushed Kurt through the hospital’s automatic doors and out into the parking lot. “It’s just the medication talking.”

“You’re a detestable human being,” Kurt said.

“Yes, but that’s part of my charm.” Sebastian straightened his back and smiled proudly, even though there was no way for Kurt to see.

“You’re a coward.”

Sebastian made a hurt noise.

“See,” Sebastian pouted, “that wasn’t called for. Now you’re just being mean.”

This time Kurt tried to turn. He managed to twist his torso around enough to get a glimpse of his fiancé, but a sharp stab of pain shooting up his spine effectively put him back in his place.

“You used me as a human shield!” Kurt yelled, almost inhaling an errant piece of cotton.

“I think ‘human shield’ is a bit of an overstatement,” Sebastian said with a weak chuckle.

“You picked me up and dragged me in front of you!”

Kurt sighed low in that dangerous way that Sebastian had long learned to interpret as meaning he was about to spend a couple of lonely nights sleeping on the sofa with no comfort except for a bottle of Jack and _HBO_.

Sebastian was really hoping it wouldn’t come to that.

“I’m sorry, Kurt!” Sebastian pleaded, stopping the wheelchair at the curb and kneeling beside his fiancé, his cocky façade finally cracking. “I saw the mob of them coming at me and I…I panicked!”

“They were twelve-year-olds!” Kurt roared back without a hint of pity. “Twelve-year-olds on scooters!”

“And _bicycles_!” Sebastian said, emphasizing it as if it really made a difference.

“For fuck’s sake, Sebastian!”

“They were on the sidewalk!” Sebastian continued to argue even though he didn’t have any valid excuse for what he did. “They were in blatant violation of traffic laws! Any policeman would have told you that!”

“They weren’t even coming at us!” Kurt continued, spitting the cotton out of his mouth where it tumbled down his neck brace and clung to his shirt. Sebastian held back a grimace of disgust as he watched. “We could have just moved to the side and let them pass!”

“But I’m still right!” Sebastian persisted. “They were dangerous! I mean, look at what they did to you!”

For a second, Kurt tried to get up out of the wheelchair and walk away, but his body knew better and stayed put.

“You kept moving me to block your path! If we had stayed still, we would have been fine, but you shoved me in their direction. _That’s_ why I snagged my Burberry coat on that kid’s bike chain. A coat _you’re_ _replacing_ , by the way.”

Sebastian’s eyes fell to his hands where he fidgeted with his fingers picking invisible lint off of Kurt’s pant leg.

“I really think we should make that little mutant replace it,” Sebastian muttered, “but whatevs.”

“Bas!” Kurt had bypassed annoyed completely and sounded utterly horrified. “That ‘little mutant’ broke his leg as well! We’re lucky his parents don’t sue.”

Sebastian didn’t look up into his fiancé’s stormy glare, completely involved in the matter of invisible lint.

“Eh…yes and no…”

Kurt threw his hands in the air and slammed them down on the arm rests, wincing at the sting in his sprained wrist.

“Augh! Bas! You are so infuriating!”

Sebastian sighed again, abandoning his fidgeting and running his hands through his hair. He raised his green eyes to meet Kurt’s, but Kurt darted his eyes away.

“Would it help if I said that I was sorry?”

Kurt’s eyes drifted back to look down on Sebastian, his stare hard and piercing, simmering with rage. The two simply looked at one another, neither one blinking, neither one backing down. It took a several minutes of gazing into the sincere expression of repentance on Sebastian’s upturned face for Kurt’s own stony mask of anger to melt even the slightest bit.

“No!” Kurt spat out.

“Well, that’s a relief,” Sebastian said, standing to push the wheelchair again. “I’m not sure I could have made it sound believable if I tried.”

Kurt wasn’t ready to forgive his fiancé, but he knew Sebastian’s snarky posturing was all an act, no matter how convincing. The man had almost cried on the phone to 9-1-1 when Kurt said he couldn’t move his leg. He begged the injured little boy’s parents (chaperones on the Boy Scout troop’s ten-mile ride around the city) for help because he didn’t know what to do. Kurt had seen Sebastian cool, calm, and collected in dozens of worse situations (a fifty-two care pile up on the Brooklyn Bridge during a torrential rainstorm being one of those) and yet the thought of Kurt broken nearly did him in.

Kurt would smile if he thought it wouldn’t split his sutures.

Kurt was quiet on the cab ride home, and Sebastian kept his distance, not wanting to irritate his uncomfortable fiancé any more than necessary. It was a tight fit in the back seat, and in the end, Kurt occupied most of the bench with Sebastian shoved up against the car door, acting like an ottoman for Kurt’s casted leg. When they got to their penthouse uptown, Sebastian exited the car first, rounded to Kurt’s side, and lifted his fiancé out, being careful not to knock around his injured ankle. He helped Kurt awkwardly back into his wheelchair, rolled him up the ramp and through the double doors.

It wasn’t until they reached the solitude of the elevator that Sebastian finally spoke again. This time he actually sounded genuinely sorry.

“You’re my hero, you know,” Sebastian said softly.

“Yeah,” Kurt scoffed, “big brave Kurt defending his asshole fiancé from a fleet of adorable little kids. I’ll be sure to think about that when I can’t even walk to the bathroom by myself.”

Sebastian leaned back against the wall, smacking his head in the process.

“Are you ever planning on forgiving me?” Sebastian asked.

“I might,” Kurt mumbled, “but that remains to be seen.”

“Well, is there anything I can do in the meantime to move things along?” The frustration in Sebastian’s tone had returned, but there was still a pitiful, whiny thread of distress underneath, and that was enough for Kurt.

For now.

“Well,” Kurt said as the elevator stopped and the door to their floor slid open, “buy me a little silver bell and get yourself a frilly French maid’s outfit, and we’ll talk.”

Sebastian laughed, more relaxed as he wheeled Kurt out of the elevator, but the silence that met his laughter was not at all reassuring.

“You’re serious about the French maid outfit, aren’t you?” Sebastian asked.

“Oh yeah…” Kurt said, smiling to himself. “Yes, I am.”


	120. The Midnight Show

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon prompt - 'Kurt and Sebastian getting caught doing the deed. Extra points for dirty talk and toys.' Warning for sex, dirty talk, slut shaming, toys, voyeurism.

Kurt giggled as he tripped down the hallway to the loft, catching the toe of his shoe on the floor and nearly falling on his face. Sebastian’s hands latched around his hips kept him mostly upright, though if he hadn’t managed to right himself at the last minute he would have fallen with Kurt, crushing his poor boyfriend beneath his body.

He didn’t mind the thought of having Kurt beneath him, just not out in the hallway for the neighbors to see.

“You know, you really can’t hold your tequila worth shit,” Sebastian commented while a swaying Kurt fumbled for his key to the sliding loft door.

“Yeah…well…if I could, Friday nights might not be half as fun,” Kurt said between hiccups. “At least this way you know you’re going to get laid.”

“Stop being a princess, Hummel,” Sebastian groaned, pulling Kurt’s hips back roughly against him, letting Kurt feel how hard he already was. “You couldn’t say no to me if you tried…and you _have_ tried.”

Kurt grinned, wrenching the key hard in the stuck lock and yelping with triumph when he heard the tumblers move.

“Yeah, well…” Kurt started to argue, turning in Sebastian’s arms in an attempt to assault his lips.

“Stop talking,” Sebastian said, laying claim to Kurt’s lips first. He picked Kurt up and he wrapped his legs around Sebastian’s waist. With a barely effective kick of his foot to slide the loft door shut, Sebastian carried Kurt across the loft to his room.

“Is Berry…”

“No,” Kurt said, cutting Sebastian’s question off prematurely, answering him between nips to his mouth and searing kisses. “You would have heard her screaming already if she was home. You know how she feels about this.” Kurt smiled against Sebastian’s lips. “We’ve got the place entirely to ourselves.”

“You know…” Sebastian stopped walking for a second to secure his grip on Kurt, moving his hands to grab Kurt’s ass. He didn’t worry about dropping his boyfriend since Kurt’s legs were locked like vices around his hips. “…just because she’s not getting any dick at the moment doesn’t mean she has the right to ruin everyone else’s fun.”

Sebastian struggled for a moment with the privacy curtain, not wanting to let go of Kurt’s ass long enough to deal with the damn thing properly. Kurt reached out a hand, grabbed the end of the fabric, and tossed it aside, leaving a gaping hole and a completely unobstructed view into his bedroom area. Sebastian stepped to the side to chase the curtain and pull it shut, but Kurt slapped him on the shoulder.

“Leave it, leave it, leave it,” Kurt chanted. “It doesn’t matter. Need you _now_.”

Sebastian couldn’t resist that animalistic whine of need and want in Kurt’s voice. He kept on walking until they hit the far wall, and there Sebastian kept them, with Kurt pinned up against the smooth brick.

“Sebastian,” Kurt moaned, lowering himself to the floor and working on opening the fly to Sebastian’s jeans, “if we were just going to have sex standing up against the wall, we could have done it in the bathroom at the club.”

“Wow,” Sebastian grinned, opening Kurt’s zipper and fly much quicker than Kurt was managing his, shoving down his jeans (and only his jeans since Kurt went sans underwear) to his knees, “I never thought I’d hear the day when Kurt Hummel would prefer a quickie in the bathroom.”

“I didn’t say I preferred it,” Kurt argued, letting Sebastian turn him around, bracing his hands against the wall, “I’m just saying…”

“Oh my _God_ ,” Sebastian cut him off with a low, guttural moan, having run his hands between Kurt’s cheeks and discovering his little surprise, “how long have you had that in there?” Sebastian took hold of the end of Kurt’s toy – a smooth, black metal plug he had bought for himself in secret days early – and turned it slowly, pulling it out a bit and then pushing it back into Kurt’s hole with shallow thrusts.

“All night long,” Kurt purred, moving his ass back and forth as Sebastian pushed and pulled. “I wanted to keep myself open for you, baby.”

“Oh, Kurt…” Sebastian slid the plug out and tossed it on the bed, preparing to replace it with his own hard cock, “you can’t just say things like that. You know there are consequences.”

“Oh, yes,” Kurt cried as Sebastian pushed himself slowly past his gaping entrance, “I was sort of counting on that.”

“God, princess,” Sebastian murmured, moving Kurt’s head aside and sucking a dark purple mark on the pale skin of his neck, “you’re such a fucking slut, aren’t you? Keeping that in there, waiting for me to find it…you’re just begging to be fucked, aren’t you?”

“Only by you,” Kurt sighed in a voice that couldn’t keep itself to any one register, breaking at odd intervals and dissolving into moans the more Sebastian sucked, the harder he pounded.

“Oh, Kurt,” Sebastian whispered, his own voice breaking, “you’re so open for me. I’m not going to last long.”

“That’s okay, babe,” Kurt said, crawling down the wall and leaning back to match Sebastian’s thrusts, “this is just round one. I have a few more surprises up my sleeve.”

“Oh, God,” Sebastian whimpered through gritted teeth, remembering the last surprise Kurt had for him which involved handcuffs, a ball gag, and some sexy lingerie.

Sebastian went silent, his jaw slack, hanging open as he tried to remember to breath. He pounded harder and harder to keep up with Kurt’s wanton chant of, “faster, faster, faster…”

“Shit, shit, shit, shit…” Sebastian choked out as he came, reaching around frantically when he suddenly remembered Kurt’s neglected cock and moaning again when he felt Kurt’s hand beneath his, already stroking himself madly.

“Come on, Hummel,” Sebastian muttered, hips still moving, trying to last just a little longer for his boyfriend’s sake, “cum already.”

“You know, Sebastian, I… _fuck_...” His orgasm cut off his witty comeback, lodging it in his throat. He abandoned himself to a single, drawn out swear as he painted the brick in front of him with his cum.

“Jesus Christ, Sebastian,” Kurt chuckled between pants, “the wall! Oh, fuck!”

“Don’t worry, babe,” Sebastian said, holding Kurt tight against him until he felt his cock start to get soft, “it comes right off.”

Kurt laughed, enjoying the feeling of melting into his boyfriend’s arms, but as he was getting ready to suggest that they move to the bed for the next round, his moment of peace and relaxation was cut short by the sound of hooting and applause.

“Bravo!” twin female voices shouted from the living room. “Bravo! Excellent! Very well done!”

Kurt clamped his jaw tight, almost biting his own tongue in two, so it was Sebastian who spoke for them both.

“God fucking dammit, Santana!” he turned his head and bellowed over his shoulder. “Again? What the fuck are you even doing here?”

Kurt stood up like a shot, pulling up his jeans quickly, nearly getting his suddenly flaccid cock caught in the fly.

“So, what did you think, Dani?” Santana asked, side-eying her snickering girlfriend and blatantly ignoring Sebastian’s rage-filled question.

“Oh, I would definitely give them a 10,” Dani said, raising her hands and clapping, shaking her head from side to side. “I have to say that their artistry is definitely improving, as is their form overall. And the addition of the toys and the dirty talk…always a crowd favorite.”

“Really?” Santana asked with a slight frown. “I don’t know. The entry was pretty smooth, I’ll admit, but that dismount.” Santana bowed her head and sighed. “I’m afraid I’ll have to give you boys an 8.”

“Fuck off!” Sebastian yelled louder.

“Don’t get your panties in a knot,” Santana said, “it’s a solid score.”

“When the fuck is she moving out again?” Sebastian growled, reaching between them to inconspicuously zip up his jeans and help Kurt with his.

“Technically, she already moved out,” Kurt hissed back, taking over with his zipper and the button to his fly, “she just won’t give us back her frickin’ key.”

“And why would I?” Santana piped in, proving that their hushed talking was essentially useless. “If I can’t get in here while you guys are out, how can I rummage through Berry’s things, and…” She gestured to the two of them huddled against the wall, “I would miss out on my favorite midnight show.”

Sebastian turned on Kurt with fury in his eyes.

“And _you_ didn’t want to move in with me,” Sebastian accused.

“Believe me,” Kurt said, kissing apologies gently onto Sebastian’s lower lip, “I’m definitely reconsidering it.”


	121. A Different Approach to Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sebastian dies in a tragic car accident, and a distraught Kurt tries to bring him back.
> 
> Okay, this is a Zombie!Sebastian AU from a prompt I apparently gave to myself. If you are a loyal follower of my blog, you might have read where I write in my sleep, and ended up giving myself a zombie prompt. Many of my readers said it sounded like an ‘In The Flesh’ AU, but as I don’t watch that show, any similarities are awesome, but entirely unintended.
> 
> This story is written in two styles. The first half is a normal narrative. The second half is written from Kurt’s perspective, via journal entries.
> 
> This is meant to be romantic and angsty more than gory, so even though there are some zombie elements, it’s not extreme. But tread with caution.
> 
> Futurefic, angst, romance, major character death, minor blood and gore.

“Please, sir,” the ancient, decrepit woman hissed, but not unkindly. It was simply a symptom of her thick accent coupled with her indeterminable old age that caused her to talk that way. “Please, reconsider this decision.”

Kurt looked at the woman, his eyes bloodshot, his hair a mass of tangled, wayward strands, his lips quivering from constant, unrelenting crying.

“You said you had it!” Kurt whined, bypassing her arguments. “You said you would sell it to me! Why else would I come here?”

“You need to understand,” the woman implored, opening her hands in a pleading gesture, fixing Kurt with one clear blue eye (the other clouded – a useless, milky white lump of tissue almost hanging from its socket), “what you ask for, it’s…unnatural.”

“But, your granddaughter said you had it!” Kurt persisted. He shot a steely glare at the simpering young woman, who ducked behind her grandmother and hid from his volatile sight.

“My granddaughter is a foolish girl,” the woman said, directing the comment over her shoulder to the girl cowering there, “but she means well. We need the money. She was thinking with her head and not her heart.”

“I can pay you twice what you’re asking for!” Kurt pleaded, reaching into his back pocket for his wallet. “Three times! I’ll give you whatever you want! I came here in a Mercedes. I’ll give that to you!”

The trembling girl peeked out from over her grandmother’s shoulder, but the woman turned and barked sharply at her in a language Kurt could not begin to understand.

“Mr. Hummel…” the old woman reached out to comfort Kurt, taking his shaking hand in hers, “your husband is dead, and I am more sorry than I can ever express at your loss. You carry your love for him like a beacon…”

Kurt’s face crumbled at her words – hot tears falling anew down his ruddy cheeks.

“It shines from every part of you, but it is up to you to carry it now. It will never fade, as long as you remember him.”

“I don’t want to remember him,” Kurt whimpered, his voice cracking. “I want him here with me. I want you to help me bring him back.”

The woman shook of her head.

“The effects of life are varied, Mr. Hummel. The effects of death should remain permanent.”

Kurt flinched.

 _Permanent_.

Sebastian dead…his husband gone…and nothing for Kurt to look forward to in life but emptiness. Every moment of their life they had planned together. One asshole drunk driver later and Kurt was alone.

Just like when he was younger.

Just like when he lost his mom.

Kurt let the sorrow within him curdle, souring to anger.

He yanked his hand out of the old woman’s grasp.

“Your granddaughter said there were other methods of getting what I wanted,” Kurt snarled. “More dangerous methods. Methods that might require payment in sacrifice…even blood.”

The old woman snapped her head back over her shoulder, scolding her granddaughter in a harsh, guttural voice, and the girl who had started to brave coming out of hiding shrank down once again.

“Alright, Mr. Hummel,” the woman sighed. “I will sell the potion to you at the promised price.”

Kurt stared for a moment in relief and shock, opening up his wallet with the onset of happier tears and thumbing through the bills, pulling out a little extra out of joy for getting what he wanted. He passed the money over, but the woman didn’t want to touch it. The granddaughter popped out long enough to grab the money and then scurried away again. The woman reached into the folds of her skirts, to a leather pouch that Kurt could see hanging from a thin belt around her waist. She reached a hand in and slowly fished out a tiny bottle of blue glass with a cork stopper sealing the mouth. She extended her arm to hand Kurt the bottle, and for the first time her hand shook.

“Pour the contents of this bottle into your husband’s mouth, Mr. Hummel,” the woman instructed, “and your husband will return.”

Kurt held the bottle up to the dim candlelight of the musty, cluttered SoHo shop. The blue glass glimmered, and a thick liquid inside swayed back and forth, shimmering slightly as it moved.

“There are some rules that go along with that potion,” the woman said, her voice weeding into Kurt’s head, summoning him back from his momentary trance, “and a few warnings you must heed as well.”

Kurt had hoped it would be a simple matter of giving his husband the liquid and living happily ever after, but Kurt knew realistically that nothing was that simple.

“Okay,” he said, slipping the bottle carefully into his pocket and patting over it twice to insure it was safe.

“First of all, you will give that to your husband, but what will come back…” she paused and swallowed hard, “will not _entirely_ be your husband.”

Kurt nodded. He had expected her to say something along those lines. It was like a scene straight from _Practical_ _Magic_ (with him being Sandra Bullock, of course).

The woman fixed both eyes, clear and clouded, on Kurt’s face as he stared back at her expectantly, waiting for her to finish her speech so he could go back to his home and get on with his life.

She realized with deep regret that he had every intention of going through with this, and sighed, taking on a heavy burden in allowing this to continue.

“Be there to look into his eyes when he awakes,” she said.

Kurt hadn’t dreamed of leaving his side, but since the woman made such a point of it, he became intrigued.

“Why?”

“He is being reborn, in a sense,” she said. “And like other simple-minded creatures he will imprint on the first person he sees.” She took his hands and squeezed them.  “That person _needs_ to be you.”

Kurt’s gulp was audible, the weight of her words and of his plan suddenly settling on him. He felt it all pressing in him, like that moment when the police came to his door. It turned him inside out, left his heart out in the cold.

He felt that cold now.

“Once the potion absorbs into his tissues, it will restart his heart,” she continued. “Then the potion will replicate. It will begin to take the place of his blood. It will make him calm, easier for you to control.”

Kurt nodded again. He wanted to say something, to assure the woman that he understood, but she didn’t pause long enough for him to speak.

It didn’t matter. He could see the trepidation in her one, clear eye. He wasn’t sure exactly what to say to make this better.

“It will be a slow process, and you must learn to be a patient man!” She raised her voice, scolding him, letting go of one hand to waggle an emphatic finger in front of his face. “You will be teaching him, raising him as you would a child. Remember that even if only a small portion of his soul returns, that soul belongs to your husband, and you must love him or this will not work.”

The woman stepped back, out of breath from her outburst, and the granddaughter (whom Kurt had forgotten about) returned, pushing up an ornate but dusty antique chair. Kurt held the woman’s arms gently and helped her down into it. The woman sat and waved both of them off, not wanting them to make a fuss when she still had more to say.

“But most importantly,” the woman labored on, barely missing a beat in her speech, “do not let him taste live blood in any form.” Kurt knelt down closer so that the woman didn’t feel the need to yell for her words to reach him. “Don’t let him bite you or lick your wounds. Or anyone else’s – human or animal.”

Kurt gasped, remembering the last _Walking Dead_ marathon he and Sebastian had watched. Sebastian thought the show was hilarious, but Kurt could barely make it to the middle of the first season. He had started with his hands over his eyes, then with his arm locked around Sebastian’s, anxiously smacking his shoulder, and finally with most of his body lying over his husband’s lap and his face buried in his shirt.

“Would it make you feel better if we turned off the show and fucked?” Sebastian had asked, and Kurt had happily acquiesced, straddling his husband’s hips and riding him into the leather upholstery.

“Will I turn into a zombie, too?” Kurt asked, returning quickly, but with obvious reluctance, from his daydream. “If he does bite me?”

“No,” the woman said with an actual chuckle. “Not in this case. That’s not the nature of this spell. No. Live blood will give him back his memories.”

Kurt looked at the woman and shook his head in confusion.

“It will ignite his brain,” she continued. “He will begin to feel. In many ways, he will become more the man you married than in any other way.”

“Wh—“ Kurt stuttered, baffled as to how that could be a bad thing. If drinking his blood could make him more _Sebastian_ , Kurt would set up an IV drip the minute he got home. He would serve him cups of his blood with every meal. “Why wouldn’t I want that again?” Kurt asked, dry and plain, trying not to sound like turning his revived husband into a blood-sipping fiend wasn’t the greatest idea in known history.

The old woman smiled, but it wasn’t a fond smile. It was shrewd, as if she could read every one of his thoughts, and she _didn’t_ approve.

“Once he has his memories back, he will start to crave it. Soon, drinking blood won’t be enough for him. It won’t work as well. It won’t keep the memories as fresh. He will have to go further, do more. He will become a killer.”

Kurt’s face blanched and the woman laughed again, this time with a touch of wicked humor.

“You are playing with the laws of nature, Mr. Hummel,” she said, shaking her head and patting him on the cheek. “ _You_ are responsible, now, not only for your own life, but for the life of those around you.”

The woman leaned in close, those eyes – one alive, one dead - more menacing now than when he had walked into the shop, her face no longer that of a frail old woman but of a maniacally powerful witch.

“So, don’t fuck it up.”

***

Kurt drove from the city back to the Hamptons completely on autopilot. He kept the windows down and breathed in deep the cold, coastal air, trying not to think too hard about what he was about to do. He put on his iPod and cranked up the volume, listening to Showtunes and singing along emphatically, his voice splintering on notes that were usual no problem for him to hit. He tried to focus on everything and anything beside his dead husband waiting for him, lying out on their bed, naked, his body packed in ice, air conditioner blasting on high to keep decomposition at bay.

Kurt was a massive heady ball of contradictions, flying down the highway at felony speeds, both exhilarated and terrified at the venture he was about to embark on. The old woman wasn’t wrong – Kurt _was_ tampering with the laws on nature. He loved Sebastian - more than anything, more than maybe even his own life - but Sebastian was dead, and in the eyes of the universe there should be nothing Kurt could do to change that.

But there was.

He found it.

And he was.

Even if it scared the shit out of him.

He hadn’t told another living soul about this. He had a pretty good idea of what might happen if he did.

Like the cynic he was, Kurt also entertained the possibility that this might all be a scam - a way to extort $500 out of a grieving widower, willing to pay anything to have his husband back. Except he had to admit that the old woman – possibly a hundred or so years older than God – put on a convincing act of being afraid for the paltry total of $500 considering what the granddaughter had described of their financial straits.

They probably could have gotten a thousand out of him easily.

Kurt killed the radio when he turned off the highway, not wanting to alert the whole neighborhood to his arrival.

He loved his house – fell in love with it the first moment he laid eyes on it - but that’s when it was about to become a home.

Now, it was simply a tomb. A mausoleum.

What would the home owner’s association think if they knew he was harboring a corpse in his bedroom without their permission?

When he had left earlier in the day, he had neglected to leave on any of the lights. It seemed fitting to keep the place dark while his husband’s body lay within, but now he wished he had left one light on at least – or a flashlight by the door. As he opened the door and peered into the pitch black living room, he waited, holding his breath, half-expecting his husband’s naked corpse to meet him at the entryway.

He chided himself for being such a ridiculous idiot, though, how ridiculous was it really?

A day ago, when he was searching SoHo shops for that horrid incense that Sebastian used to love in hopes of keeping his husband’s favorite scent alive in the house, he would have agreed that the thought of life after death was ridiculous. That was until he stumbled on a teenaged girl who promised him the secret to bringing Sebastian back.

“Se—Sebastian?” Kurt called out, weak, hoping that his dead husband really wouldn’t answer. Kurt was thirty steps away from walking out of his comfort zone and into a world he would have rather not known existed. Sebastian coming back to life all on his own would tip Kurt over the edge into insanity.

Kurt reached out a trembling hand and turned on the light. His living room, warm and comforting, decorated in subtle muted browns with shabby chic inspired elements, welcomed him. Nothing odd or out-of-place.

Nothing dead.

Kurt continued on to the bedroom, switching on lights as he went. With each step further in toward the bedroom he had to convince himself to keep going. He originally pictured himself racing into the house, eager to get this started, but now, alone, with reality staring him in the face, he wasn’t sure.

He didn’t have the luxury of waiting to see if he would eventually change his mind. Sebastian’s internal organs, especially his brain, were decaying fast, regardless of how much ice or air conditioning he piped into the place.

Twenty steps brought him to the threshold of his bedroom, where he stood, staring at the closed door.

Kurt reached down and patted the bottle in his pocket, feeling the lump through the denim of his jeans. Kurt moved to the doorknob but stopped with his hand hovering in the air when he heard a small creak – like a foot stepping lightly on the hardwood floor. The house settling, Kurt reassured himself. That’s what Sebastian always said when Kurt woke in the middle of the night to the sound of odd creaking and whining.

_“It’s a mid-century house,” he had said. “The floors contract in the cold and expand in the heat.”_

_“What does that mean?” Kurt asked._

_“It means the house talks in our sleep,” Sebastian replied without opening his eyes. “Now go back to sleep.”_

“Just the house settling,” Kurt muttered, taking the thought from his mind and saying it out loud to make it real. “Nothing else alive in the house except for me.”

Still, Kurt couldn’t bring himself to open the door.

He heard the creak again.

“Sebastian?” Kurt called out again. “Are you there? Are you…are you waiting for me, baby?”

 _Of course he’s waiting for you_ , Kurt thought. _He’s waiting for you to grow a pair and get this over with_.

Kurt sighed, allowing the rush of breath in his deflating body to give his hand momentum, to touch the doorknob and open it like he had hundreds of times before.

This time was no different.

He turned the knob and switched on the light without thinking about the sight that awaited him on the bed. When his eyes flicked up and saw him, Kurt almost fell to the floor.

Sebastian – his body lying in bed, eyes closed. He looked asleep, and from this distance, normal except for a few cuts and bruises on his gorgeous face. The accident hadn’t really banged his body up all that badly.

It was his severed neck from the whiplash onto the steering wheel that had killed him instantly.

He had been leaning forward in his car seat, looking at street signs, stuck on a small, offshoot road that the GPS in his car had apparently never heard of before. He had entered the intersection of the suburban street slowly when the other car flew through out of nowhere and hit him from behind. Sebastian hit the steering wheel, ironically, half a second before the air bag deployed.

Kurt blinked back the tears that automatically leapt to his eyes at the thought of the accident that took his husband from him.

“H—hey, baby,” Kurt said, gathering his senses, trying to get comfortable with the idea of talking to his husband again. “I went out shopping today, and you’ll never believe what I brought home.”

Kurt could see his own breath as it met the atmosphere of the room, making what he was doing that much more morbid. His knees knocked as he clamped them together, trying to keep his weak legs mobile. He reached the bed and his casual, conversational tone disappeared, the words wavering as he spoke.

“I think…this might…help…” he hiccupped, side-eying his husband’s body. His skin looked waxy and wet from the ice and the frigid air, and the color wasn’t right. Kurt knew that soon the blood would pool and Sebastian’s pallor would turn black, so he had to hurry, but every muscle in his body screamed for him to turn around and run.

Kurt touched the bed and whimpered.

 _I can do this, I can do this…_ he chanted in his head. He reached out a hand and let it brush Sebastian’s fingers. He tried to recall their warmth, their touch on his skin, the way his touch made him feel loved, beautiful, desired.

Kurt wanted that back.

And he wasn’t going to let anything stand in his way.

Kurt turned and knelt on the bed. He crawled over to Sebastian’s body and leaned over his peaceful face.

“I’m going to get you back,” Kurt whispered, cursing the sound of fear in his voice. “If I have to go to heaven or hell and bring you back myself.”

Kurt reached into his pocket and pulled out the blue bottle. He held it to the light again and gave it a little swirl, watching the liquid spin around the stomach of the glass and then settle into a shimmering mass.

Kurt pulled out the stopper and brought the bottle up to Sebastian’s lips.

“Bottoms up, love,” Kurt whispered, pecking a small kiss to cold skin and then tipping the contents into his mouth. Kurt expected to see Sebastian’s throat move as he swallowed, but it didn’t. For now, he was still dead…but not for long.

Kurt knelt beside Sebastian’s side, staring down into his husband’s face, heeding the ancient woman’s words to be the first person Sebastian saw when he opened his eyes. He knelt and knelt for over an hour, the thought that this was all an elaborately planned and executed hoax becoming more a likelihood as time passed by.

The neighborhood outside started to become light. Kurt could barely see the rays of the sun seep in beneath the blackout curtains, but there it was – evidence of a brand new day - and still there was no change, no sign, nothing on Sebastian’s face that might give Kurt a reason to hold on. He struggled against exhaustion, grasping at thin straws of hope, but he was failing.

It had been a dream – a wonderful dream.

But Kurt had to wake up and face facts that his husband wasn’t coming back to him in any form.

Kurt stretched his limbs - one leg, than the other. Then he lifted up his torso, bending his arms and flexing his hands. He crawled backward off the bed and stood, raising his arms above his head, listening to his spine snap and pop. He looked at Sebastian again – one last look before he made his plans for his husband’s burial.

Kurt walked to his dresser and opened the top drawer, looking for his pajamas. Before he did anything, he needed a nap or he would drop dead on his feet.

He winced at the ill-placed pun.

He rummaged through the drawer, looking past perfectly suitable pairs of shirts and lounge pants, for what he did not know…until he found it.

A journal.

He hadn’t written in it since his father was diagnosed with cancer. In its pages were written everything that ever tried to knock him down a peg, anything that ever tried to bring him to his knees. There were entries about his mother’s death, Karofsky’s bullying, Blaine’s betrayal. It was a way for him to cope with the horrible things that happened in his life. Not till that moment had he considered it ironic that he only wrote down the bad stuff and didn’t keep track of the good. He should have kept albums full of all the amazing memories – winning Nationals, getting into NYADA, marrying Sebastian.

He swore that someday he would buy a journal and fill it with all the happy events in his life, but he had this one with him now, so he might as well write another entry – one more moment of pain to add to the list.

Kurt felt numb to everything around him, and not just because of the incredibly pervasive cold. Nothing seemed to matter now. He left his pajamas in the drawer and hopped back up onto the bed. There was nothing for him here to fear. What lay in bed before him was a body, nothing more - flesh and blood rotting from the inside with no beautiful soul to keep it all together and make it worth something.

He opened the journal to an empty page, where a blue ballpoint pen was shoved into the spine, waiting for him. He picked the pen out and uncapped it, putting the pen to the paper and trying to decide what to write. Where should he start? A few minutes ago when Kurt decided to give up on the thought of his husband coming back? A couple of hours ago when the old woman almost refused to sell him the potion? Or that horrible night when the police showed up at his door with forlorn looks and bad news?

While Kurt tried to decide, he heard the melting ice-cubes collapse in their piles where some had turned to water and made way for others to fall. He felt the bed dip slightly as he shifted his legs beneath him, his crossed limbs falling asleep in their bent up position. He heard a murmur as he cleared his throat, the sound rumbling in his chest, though the voice didn’t exactly sound like his own.

Even in the cold room, he felt his blood turn to ice. He didn’t think he could get any colder, but he did. That inside out feeling returned, along with another one starting to register.

He no longer felt quite so alone.

Kurt lowered his journal, glancing up from the blank page to find Sebastian, rolled onto his side, staring at him with wide, pale eyes.

***

January 15 –

He opened his eyes and looked at me, but the eyes I remember are gone. Gone are the beautiful grass green eyes I loved so much. These new eyes are white on white, the pupils infinitely dark and the irises torn. They stare. They don’t blink. These eyes look at me, but they don’t seem to recognize me. I don’t want to reject him, but those eyes unnerve me.

There’s so much about them that’s innocent and frightened.

There’s so much about them that’s desolate and dead.

We literally spent the morning looking at one another.

I would give anything to know what was going on in his mind.

I want to reach out and touch him, but I’m afraid. I know he won’t feel the same. He won’t be warm. What could be worse than feeling his skin after he was dead? I don’t know. But whatever this is, it might be worse. And he won’t smell like Sebastian. He won’t have his snarky attitude or his beautiful singing voice. It’s almost as if I adopted some wild animal and made it my husband.

What have I done?

***

January 16 –

All day long, he tried to move, grunting with the effort of struggling to stand up and get out of bed. He didn’t speak words; he just groaned. I want to help him. I want to pretend that he’s simply convalescing after a horrible illness. I want to bathe him and dress him. I want to sit him down in front of the television, prop up his feet, and feed him soup and ice-cream. I want to put this chapter behind us and get on with our lives.

I want to make-believe him dying never happened, but I’m not that good an actor.

He’s behaving the way the old woman warned me he would. He’s like a child – a grown, mentally disabled child.

This is the ‘in sickness and in health’ part of the marriage package, which I agreed to without hesitation.

Never mind the ‘till death do us part’ portion.

These are my vows and I’ll honor them.

My love will help him, I know it will.

…

Can I really do this, or am I fooling myself?

***

January 17 –

I’m trying my best to take the bad with the good.

I managed to get him to the living room sofa. He moved his legs stiffly. He couldn’t seem to bend his knees.

He had been declared dead on arrival because of the injury to his neck, but now I’m wondering if anything else is broken. I wasn’t really paying attention to the mortician when he went over the extent of Sebastian’s injuries. After I heard the word ‘dead’, I kind of tuned out.

I should get a copy of that report.

But if his legs are broken, how will I deal with that? Will the potion magically fix everything? I mean, it brought him back to life. Could fixing broken legs be more difficult than that? What is the extent of its effects?

Maybe I should call the old shopkeeper back and ask.

We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

He stumbled numerous times and fell on me. I did my best not to cringe at his touch or accidentally drop him, but those eyes, so close to mine, were like looking into a nightmare. I could almost see through them.

The fourth time he stumbled, though, I had the feeling that maybe he was falling on purpose.

I even thought I saw the shadow of a smile cross his lips.

I watched him carefully as he sat in front of the TV and renewed his passion for The Speed Channel. There was a show about Ferraris on. They were always his favorite.

He sat so still. He didn’t swallow. He didn’t appear to breathe.

The only time he moved was when he looked over to where I sat to make sure, I think, that I was still there.

He sat for hours and watched those shows. There was nothing else for him to do.

I fed him salad for dinner. I let him stay in front of the television. I didn’t see any real reason to move him. He leaned down and sniffed the cold lettuce leaves, but he didn’t eat it.

Neither did I.

***

January 19 –

After a full day of limping him around the house, Sebastian is surprisingly steady on his feet. He can make it from the bedroom to the living room sofa by himself. It takes him a while, but he can do it.

His body is still stiff, but he seems to be getting more comfortable with it.

I should be jumping for joy at his progress, but I don’t know that _I’m_ all that comfortable with it.

***

January 21 -

He doesn’t sleep, and now that he doesn’t rely on me to get around the house, neither do I. I know that he sees me almost as a parent and that he won’t hurt me, but he’s such an alien creature. Not like the old Sebastian at all.

It’s strange having him around the house.

~~When Sebastian was~~

Before the accident, Sebastian was so independent. He worked even though with his trust fund he really didn’t have to. On his days off, he had tons of projects that kept him busy. He almost didn’t need me. But now, he needs to be near me all the time.

I understood there would be a change, but it’s such a striking change that it’s difficult to get used to.

I took a shower for the first time in days. I left him in the living room watching the TV, but when I was finished and opened the curtain, there he was, standing there…staring.

I fell asleep for about an hour afterward and when I woke up, he was kneeling beside me, again staring at me.

He’s always staring.

What does he see when he looks at me?

***

January 22 –

I finally broke down and gave Sebastian a shower. He didn’t necessarily stink but there was something about him, something that smelled…well, I can’t describe it here. I just wanted it gone.

I had seen the injuries to his front but I hadn’t paid much attention to his back.

When I saw them, I almost threw up.

And he noticed. He heard me gag and he turned, and for the first time he had an expression on his face that was different from his normal blank one…or even from that almost imperceptible smile I thought I saw when I was helping him walk around the house.

I gasped, holding in my urge to be sick, and he turned his neck to look at me.

He looked hurt.

***

January 27 -

Each day that he improves, I debate telling his family, but in the end it would be too cruel. He’s not entirely himself anymore. He never will be. Most times I curse myself for doing this to him. My motives were selfish. I wasn’t thinking of anyone but myself when I made the decision to bring him back. I wasn’t thinking of his family.

I wasn’t even thinking of him.

Our lives are unrecognizable. We’ll probably never travel the world like we planned. We’ll never have children. Our entire lives will be here, in this house, and I have to be just fine with that.

But what about Sebastian?

If you asked me logically if I think he really wants to live this half-life, no potential to be anything other than a walking human puppet who only barely resembles the man that was Sebastian Smythe, I would have to say no.

Absolutely not, but I can’t turn back now.

I can only hope that my love for him is enough to keep him from hating me when he’s able to comprehend completely what I’ve done to him.

***

February 1 –

I’ve finally gotten him to eat – little bits and pieces, mostly small bites of vegetables and corners of bread. It doesn’t look like he likes it, but he eats it, and that’s good. He eats because I tell him to. It shows that he trusts me.

He’s more self-sufficient now. He showers himself and brushes his teeth. He picks out his pajamas and dresses himself. Sometimes he tries his hand at making the bed. He’s trying to be more vocal, but he has yet to say a single thing that isn’t a grunt or a moan. I’ve been looking up the subject of speech delay on the internet, trying to find ways to help him learn. I started making him flashcards, but I don’t even know if he can read.

***

February 3 –

I tried calling that shop in SoHo to ask about the total effects of the potion, but the phone has been disconnected.

I guess they went out of business after all.

It doesn’t matter. Nothing appears to be broken, or maybe it’s just that he doesn’t feel pain.

I was trying to teach him how to cook. I had him grating cheese. He ran the grater over the back of his fingers, scraping off skin, but he didn’t even flinch. I think it bothered me more than it bothered him. I bandaged it up, and without thinking I kissed the wound. I looked up at him in utter shock…

…and he smiled.

It’s so nice to see his smile back. I never thought I would.

***

February 4 –

I took off Sebastian’s bandage, and his bruise from the cheese grater is completely gone. There’s not a single trace of it left. I guess that answers that question.

I should be relieved, but it bothers me, and I don’t know why.

***

February 14 –

Today was the most unexpectedly intense, depressing and wonderful day all at once.

It started when Sebastian woke up this morning. He got up before me and tried to make me breakfast. I had no idea why. He hadn’t tried before. He burned it, and himself, and almost the house along with it. The fire alarm woke me up, blaring in my ears. I managed to get to the fire extinguisher in time, but poor Sebastian looked heartbroken over his blackened toast and undercooked eggs.

Then, before lunch, he wanted to go outside. I think he was trying to sneak out in secret but I caught him jiggling the front doorknob (he has yet to master the lock…thank you to whoever I should thank). When I caught him, he slammed his hand on the door, and sprinted for the back door. I followed him, knowing it was locked and that he wouldn’t be able to go outside. When I reached the back door, he was trying to wedge his way out of the old dog door (I don’t know why we have it. We’ve never actually owned a dog, but there’s one in the kitchen, too). I patted him gently on the back and asked him what he needed. He stood up and groaned, moving his mouth, wiggling his tongue, making nonsensical sounds, but when he couldn’t say what he needed to say, he pointed out the window to the garden. I shrugged. I told him I didn’t understand, and he pointed again, jabbing at the window with his index finger.

“I don’t…I don’t understand,” I said. “Do you want to go outside for a walk?”

I had taken him outside a few times, when the neighborhood kids were at school and I didn’t think anyone would notice us. I wrapped him up in a full length coat and scarf with just his eyes peeking out. I guess he enjoyed it, but he never really asked to go outside before. He shook his head and pointed again, this time at the dying rose bushes that I hadn’t time to deadhead yet. I didn’t get it. I shrugged again and he stormed off, to the bedroom this time.

I followed him, but he locked the door.

I could hear him inside moaning and groaning. It was horrible. It sounded like pain and embarrassment and frustration all rolled together, and I couldn’t help him.

He wouldn’t let me.

I tried to lure him out several times, but he didn’t come out till dinner time.

He was dressed in his black Armani suit.

It was the suit I had planned to bury him in.

It threw me for a loop, dragging me kicking and screaming back to that day when I found out he was dead, before I decided to try bringing him back, before I knew that I could. I took out the suit to air it. I guess I hadn’t put it back into storage because there it was, standing before me, with the living corpse of my husband inside.

It took all the air out of my lungs.

“Take it off,” I said quietly, trying not to alarm him, but how was I supposed to explain to my somewhat dead husband that I didn’t want to see him dressed in the suit I planned on putting him in the ground in?

He looked confused and he shook his head, opening his mouth and groaning.

“Please, Sebastian,” I begged, hoping he would hear my anguish, “take it off.”

He stomped his foot and shook his head, just the way a petulant, disobedient child would. It should have been cute, but I couldn’t handle it. I have had so many problems with his disturbing looks before, but for the first time since he came back to me, he truly looked dead.

“Take it off!” I screamed, and I ran at him, swinging and screaming, grabbing at the lapels, trying to tear it off his body. He held me, held my arms, and I could feel his renewed strength in his hands.

I hadn’t really let him touch me before, but now I knew that if he wanted to, he could probably hurt me.

I stared up at him, realizing that he was hovering above me and that I was lying on my back, prone on the floor. My heart stopped. He had never looked menacing before. Even in death, he seemed so innocent, but now, he looked like a monster. He had a piece of paper balled in his grasp and he tried to make me look at it, but I couldn’t take my eyes away from his face – pale and cold and lifeless, regardless of the fact that he was _my_ Sebastian. He stared at me, trying to speak.

And that’s exactly what he was doing. He was trying to speak.

His lips were moving in exaggerated, grotesque ways that shouldn’t be able to turn sound into words, but they were.

“K…Kr…Ku…”

Sebastian blinked and shook his head.

“Kur…”

“Kurt?” I asked, awed and breathless that he was actually trying to say my name.

Sebastian laughed. It was a glorious, hollow, frankly frightening sound, but I couldn’t help smiling when I heard it. He put his fingers to my lips. I guess he didn’t want me to steal his thunder.

“Kurrrt,” he said, smacking his lips. “I…lo…I lov…” Sebastian swallowed again, closing his eyes, trying to make the words in his head match the movement of his lips. “I…love…you…Kurrrrt.”

Sebastian tapped again at the paper on the floor, and this time I did what he wanted and looked. He had torn off the current page from the calendar and poked at a box circled shakily in red. I peered down at it.

I could have cried.

“Valentine’s Day?” I asked, looking back at his pale, broken eyes, and he sighed, nodding.

It was Valentine’s Day.

He wanted to make me breakfast in bed…for Valentine’s Day.

He wanted to get me roses…for Valentine’s Day.

My husband wanted to do something nice for me…on Valentine’s Day.

I hate Valentine’s Day, with every last fiber of my being, but my husband spent all day teaching himself how to say, “I love you, Kurt,” because there was nothing else he could do for me.

So, now Valentine’s Day is my new favorite holiday.

***

June 4 -

Five months…ish. It’s been five months and we’ve made it! Despite the odds. Despite the difficulties and the heartache. Despite every time I thought about giving up, here we are. Happy. Together. We spend out days wrapped in each other’s arms. We watch TV. We read books. It might not be what it was before, but it’s perfect. Since we’ve made headway using foundation on his skin and contact lenses for his eyes (in a darker shade of green than his original alluring moss, but it will do), we’ve even managed to go outside more. His vocabulary has expanded immensely, and even a hint of the old snark is coming back.

I am finally at a point where I am optimistic about the future.

Finally, it seems like there might actually be one for us.

***

August 13 –

I woke up this morning to a strange screaming/squealing noise. Sebastian wasn’t lying beside me in bed, which isn’t so unusual. He’s normally the first one up on any given day, and I’ll just curl up back into a ball holding his pillow to my chest until he returns.

He always returns.

Even the squealing wasn’t really weird. I’ve thought for the last few months that we might have rats. I think I’ve heard that same squealing a few times before.

This time, instead of returning to bed, I decided I wanted to make some waffles for breakfast, so I walked out into the kitchen.

Sebastian was there.

Crouching on the floor.

Covered in blood.

Biting into the spine of what used to be a live raccoon…

…

I may have a problem.


	122. Shakespeare for Dummies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, here is a little bit of humor to break up all the angst I’ve been tossing at you all. Inspired by the anon prompt ‘Kurt asks Seb to run lines with him and maybe they kiss’ ;)
> 
> Kurt and Sebastian get paired together to do a Shakespeare scene. Dalton AU, angst, romance(ish). Warning for language, mention of Klaine/Blaine.

“But soft!” Sebastian recites with as much emotion as he can infuse into those words without retching. He glances at his book as little as possible, trying his hardest to get his lines memorized. “What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.”

Sebastian looks over at his Juliet, sitting on top of a table with his legs crossed, thumbing through an issue of _Vogue_. Sebastian frowns, tempted to throw his book at Juliet’s head.

“Can you at least _pretend_ to pay attention?” Sebastian groans. “You’re going to miss your entrance.”

“I doubt it,” Kurt says, not looking up from his magazine. “I don’t have a word for another twenty-four lines, and then all I say is ‘Ay, me!’” Kurt lifts one hand to his forehead to look appropriately lost in dreamy recollect. “And then you ramble on again for another eight lines.”

Kurt returns to his magazine, dramatically flipping to the next page.

“You should be fucking grateful, princess,” Sebastian hisses. “I picked the scene where Romeo gets the most lines so you don’t have to do a single thing but sit on your ass and try to look pretty.”

Kurt scowls, slamming his magazine down on the desk.

“No,” Kurt objects, “you picked the scene where you get the most lines because you’re an attention whore! You didn’t even ask me what scene I wanted to perform.”

“I chose the tower scene because it’s iconic,” Sebastian says through clenched teeth.

“Newsflash, dingbat, it’s _Romeo & Juliet_. _All_ the scenes are iconic!”

Sebastian glares at the superior smirk on Kurt’s face. He strangles his poor paperback in both hands, imaging it’s Kurt’s neck.

“This assignment is asinine,” Kurt continues, blatantly dismissive of Sebastian’s tantrum. “Blaine and Jeff got _King Lear_. Wes and Nick got _Macbeth_. Why did we get _Romeo & Juliet_?”

“Oh my God!” Sebastian exclaims, throwing his head back. “Can you stop babbling so we can get back to learning these lines? I want to get out of here and hang out with people I actually _like_!”

“Who assigns _Romeo & Juliet_ at an all-boy’s school and then asks them to perform a scene?” Kurt makes it a point to ignore Sebastian’s outburst. “That’s just begging for therapy…and lawsuits…”

“In Shakespeare’s time, all the women’s parts were played by men. I thought you would be up for the challenge,” Sebastian teases.

“Yeah, if I was playing Viola or Ophelia or Lady Macbeth…or even Katharina. But _Romeo & Juliet_? It’s ridiculously overdone.”

“I didn’t pick this stupid ass play,” Sebastian resumes, “and I definitely didn’t choose _you_ as a partner.”

“And why do I have to be Juliet?” Kurt asks. “Why don’t I get to be Romeo?”

“ _You_ get to be Juliet because, unlike me, your voice hasn’t changed yet.”

Kurt’s face curdles into an unattractive grimace.

“Fuck you!”

“Sorry, princess…” Sebastian relinquishes his death grip on the crumpled book, “but I didn’t pick that scene.”

Kurt kicks his legs and hops off the table, reaching for their assignment sheet.

“Well, if you get to decide who plays who, I get to pick the scene,” Kurt demands. “This assignment is worth a third of our semester grade, and I’m not trusting _you_ to get me an A.”

“I chose that scene because it’s _romantic_ ,” Sebastian says, growling out the word _romantic_ like he just tasted something sour. “I thought we would get more points for pushing some boundaries.”

Kurt skims the list of scenes they were given to choose from, his eyes settling on one in particular. He smiles.

“If you want to push some boundaries, we should go with this one.” Kurt jabs at the paper with his finger. Sebastian looks at the typed line he’s pointing at and smirks.

“You want to perform _that_ scene?” Sebastian asks. “With me?”

“Why not?” Kurt crosses his arms across his chest, the growing darkness in his eyes an obvious dare. “Afraid you’re not up to it, Smythe?”

“No,” Sebastian says. “Not at all, Hummel. But what about you? I _am_ a pretty good actor, after all. I don’t need you confusing make-believe for reality and falling all over me. I mean, what about your little boyfriend, Blaine?”

“There’re two reasons why that would never happen,” Kurt says, picking up his book and flipping the pages.

“And those are?” Sebastian asks. “Because you know I’m just _waiting_ to hear them.”

“I’m a professional. I take my craft seriously.”

“And number two?” Sebastian mocks.

Kurt’s eyes lift slowly from his book and lock onto Sebastian’s.

“I loathe you.”

“Fun,” Sebastian says, sliding uncomfortably close to his reluctant partner. “Then let’s do this. Where do you want me?”

Kurt pulls up two chairs and positions them facing one another, about a foot apart. He sits in one and looks up at Sebastian, gesturing to the other. Sebastian chuckles once. He grabs the chair and moves it closer, almost side-by-side to Kurt’s chair. He spins the chair around and straddles it, leaning forward till he and Kurt are nearly nose to nose.

“Alright,” Kurt says, briefly darting his eyes to the ceiling. “I’ll humor you.”

“Okay.” Sebastian nods. “I’ll start.”

Before Sebastian can speak, Kurt clears his throat. He takes a deep breath in and lets it out slowly, blowing loudly through pursed lips. Then he sits up straight and swallows.

“Today, Hummel,” Sebastian moans.

Kurt shoots him a murderous glare.

“What?” Kurt asks. “I’m warming up my instrument. I’m not stopping you from talking.”

Sebastian sighs, trying to find a head space he can get lost in where Romeo doesn’t want to kill Juliet. He tries to look into Kurt’s eyes, but Kurt stares passed him out the window, completely uninterested in anything but getting this scene over with.

“If I profane with my unworthiest hand  
This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:  
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand  
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.”

As Sebastian speaks, the entire atmosphere of the room changes, and Kurt’s demeanor with it. The air around him becomes heavy and thick, and Kurt feels like he’s suddenly doing something he shouldn’t – something taboo. It took only nine words to make him feel that way. His eyes drift away from the window, and even though he’s trying to stay in character, his blue eyes stare at Sebastian with an uncomfortable shock, as if he has just stumbled upon a mongrel dog in an alley, who opens his mouth and sings like Pavarotti. Sebastian’s eyes flick down to Kurt’s lips not once, but twice, and he lingers, leaning an inch closer when he says the word _kiss_.

Kurt almost forgets that it’s his turn to speak.

Sebastian’s smile turns up at the corner of his mouth when he notices.

“Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,  
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;  
For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,  
And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.”

Kurt speaking as Juliet is not what Sebastian imagined. Uptight, stuck up, high maintenance, overall highly irritating – Kurt is suddenly none of these. Sebastian thought Kurt playing Juliet would be insult unto injury, especially with his naturally high countertenor voice. He had every intention of ribbing Kurt to no end until they went back to the scene he originally picked – where he got all the lines and Kurt sat silently and did nothing.

But Kurt was practically born to play Shakespeare’s precocious heroine, and for a moment, Sebastian can see a bit of what Blaine must adore about him.

Kurt takes Sebastian’s hand mid-speech – it’s not a written stage direction in their version of the text, but it is often performed that way, with Juliet pressing their palms together.

The warmth of Kurt’s palm pressing against his has an uninvited allure to it. It’s something he doesn’t want, but it’s definitely something he can get used to.

He didn’t have a clue that his plan would backfire this spectacularly.

“Have not saints lips,” Sebastian whispers, his eyes glued to their joined hands, “and holy palmers too?”

“Ay, pilgrim,” Kurt says, and Sebastian notices with a shift of his eyes that Kurt’s gaze is focused on their hands as well, “lips that they must use in prayer.”

“O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do…” Sebastian puts the book down (vaguely realizing that he hasn’t looked at it once so far. When the fuck had he learned these lines anyway?). He takes Kurt’s other hand (which has somehow lost hold of his book as well), pressing his hand against it, palm to palm. He doesn’t need to look up to know that Kurt swallowed hard at the touch. He can hear it. He doesn’t need to see the rise and fall of Kurt’s chest to know that his breath is coming faster. He can feel it over his fingertips, which have somehow gotten closer to Kurt’s mouth. “They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.”

“Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.”

The words tumble out from Kurt’s lips, and Sebastian can’t tell if it’s because he’s trying to hold them back or if it’s because he’s eager to say them. They’re breathless and soft, and completely in this moment of awe as a girl is about to be kissed for the first time.

 _The kiss_.

It didn’t seem like such a big deal when they were posturing and provoking each other, calling each other out for being cowards, but now, for whatever reason, this kiss seems almost sacred.

Which sucks because Sebastian really wants to kiss Kurt.

Fuck you, Shakespeare!

Kurt stares at him, and Sebastian can’t tell if the rush of blood to his cheeks is a symptom of excitement or fear, but he doesn’t feel like playing Kurt anymore.

Not today.

“Uh, you know,” Sebastian says, pulling back, moving away, “we’re only required to act out twelve lines, so, I think that’s good, don’t you?”

Kurt’s eyes follow Sebastian’s lips, watch their retreat, frown at the way his tone changes in a blink from silky and seductive to snarky…though maybe not as snarky as usual.

“Yeah, well, if you can’t handle kissing me,” Kurt jokes, straightening his back and widening the distance between them.

“Ha! Don’t flatter yourself,” Sebastian says, standing up quickly and sliding the chair back in place. “I just don’t need this turning into a full-on make-out session. I have things to do.”

“So you keep saying,” Kurt comments, standing from his chair and returning it to its spot beside Sebastian’s.

“Don’t even go there, princess. You couldn’t handle kissing me.”

Kurt shrugs with a _hmph_.

“I guess you’ll never know now, will you.”

Sebastian watches Kurt head for the door, wondering if that sound of regret in Kurt’s voice was intentional or accidental.

He rushes up behind him, catching him before his hand touches the doorknob. He turns Kurt in his arms and holds him, their bodies flushed together, igniting an almost instant heat that they can feel through their layers of clothes. Kurt isn’t rigid in Sebastian’s arms. He lets himself go limp, forcing Sebastian to support him, but his eyes lock on Sebastian’s and don’t let go.

“Then move not,” Sebastian whispers in that same velvety voice as before, speaking those words softly over Kurt’s lips, “while my prayer's effect I take. Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged.”

Sebastian moves forward, taking a moment to memorize the look of want in Kurt’s eyes, because it’s undeniable. Kurt wants him. He wants Sebastian to kiss him. He’s not acting. He’s not pretending. That want is real, and it will belong to Sebastian when he takes it from him.

The loud, mind-splitting knock right next to Sebastian’s ear steals that look in Kurt’s eyes clean away.

“Kurt!” Blaine’s voice echoes the knock with the same obnoxious side-effect. “Sebastian! Time’s up.”

Sebastian rolls his eyes and lets go of Kurt. Kurt, still caught up in the fading mist of the promised kiss, almost falls straight to the floor. He stumbles back, throwing a disgruntled glare at a withdrawing Sebastian, who is already across the room, collecting his book and his bag. Kurt opens the door and sees Blaine’s smiling face beaming at him.

Kurt’s reciprocated smile is forced.

“So,” Blaine says, looking past Kurt to catch a glimpse of Sebastian, “you guys took a while. Our group was done over ten minutes ago.”

“Yeah, well, we’re doing _Romeo & Juliet_ in here,” Sebastian says. “Not pussy _King Lear_.”

“Too bad I didn’t get assigned _Romeo & Juliet_ with you,” Blaine says secretively. “I think it could have been hot to be Juliet to your Romeo.”

Kurt smiles.

Of course, Blaine would have relinquished the role of Romeo to Kurt.

That is the gentlemanly thing to do.

But Kurt doesn’t quite mind being Juliet.

“Are you ready to go?” Blaine asks, clapping his hands.

“Sure,” Kurt agrees. “Let me just get my bo--…”

Kurt stops short when Sebastian thrusts his copy of _Romeo & Juliet_ and his issue of _Vogue_ into his hands.

“Eager to get rid of me, Smythe?” Kurt taunts, but not with his usual dose of venom.

“Don’t you know it,” Sebastian answers dryly.

Blaine starts backing out of the threshold with Kurt following behind him, holding his book and his magazine to his chest. It takes only a second for Kurt to recover from…whatever that was with Sebastian, and fall into an easy conversation with Blaine about a Katy Perry number he is thinking of pitching to the Warblers. Kurt throws his head back and laughs at some corny dance move Blaine performs mid-stride, and just like that, the two of them are happily lost in their own world.

Sebastian sighs.

“Sin from thy lips?” Sebastian mutters to Kurt’s back as he walks further down the hallway. “O trespass sweetly urged! Give me my sin again.”


	123. The Skank and the Purloined Sweatshirt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the anon prompts ‘write more skank!Kurt’ and ‘Sebastian thinks that Kurt has stolen a piece of his clothing’.
> 
> Dalton AU that assumes that Kurt, Sebastian, and Blaine are all in the same grade (juniors) when Kurt’s dad is elected into Congress.
> 
> Warning for language and mention of Blaine.

Sebastian couldn’t find it. It had been more than a week now, and he couldn’t find it. He took everything out of his drawers, pulled all of his clothes out of his closet, but still no luck. He wasn’t particularly attached to his Dalton hoodie. He could just buy another one when the student store opened again on Monday. But today was Saturday, and it was raining. Everywhere in the mostly marble and wood dormitory was damp and cold. Now that he was out of his comfortable, warm bed, he had a chill running up and down his spine that wouldn’t go away. Besides, the fact that he couldn’t find it was maddening. He could have sworn that he saw the damned thing not too long ago, but now it was gone.

It’s not like he didn’t have other sweatshirts, but this one was the most comfortable – perfectly aged and oversized, soft from dozens of washings, the sleeves coming down over his hands. He could always drive over to his house and pick one up, but he had specifically opted out of his usual weekend trip home because his parents had invited his Aunt Mildred and her twelve God-forsaken kids down for the weekend, and he would be damned if he would subject himself to their endless screaming all day long.

The only other sweatshirt he had on hand fit tight around the chest and short above his wrists thanks to his last growth spurt. _And_ it wasn’t a hoodie. He looked at the sad, grey sweatshirt, giving it a sharp tug in the hopes of loosening up the fabric. He pulled it on over his head, looked at himself in the mirror, and sneered. After breakfast, he was definitely going to jump online and order another sweatshirt. Fuck it. He’d order ten, but he’d slept in late and right now he seriously needed to head down to the commons and grab a bite before they closed. The weekend cafeteria staff kept such a tight schedule that even the infamous Sebastian Smythe couldn’t charm them into bending the rules – some nonsense about them having lives or some such shit. He didn’t care enough to remember.

He raced down the relatively empty hall (since on the weekend – even a rainy weekend – school was pretty much deserted), and got there with only enough time to get an egg white omelet and a banana walnut muffin. He set his tray down at an empty table when he spotted it – his hoodie, sitting at another table, wrapped around the body of a boy reading Chaucer and drinking coffee. He stared at it for an extra second to be sure. His hoodie had only one draw string…like this one. His hoodie had a permanent grass stain on the left shoulder…like this one. His hoodie was heather grey (unlike the newer hoodies Dalton sold with were a much darker shade of grey)…like this one. Sebastian couldn’t imagine how someone would have gotten a hold of it since it never left his room and he didn’t lend it out.

Sebastian didn’t try to come up with an answer for the how. He was pissed. The bottom line was this prick, whoever he was, had gotten into his room and taken it.

Now Sebastian was going to take it back.

Sebastian took a step toward the table right as a hand peeked out from beneath the too-long sleeve to turn the page. Sebastian immediately recognized that hand – the pale skin, the perfectly manicured black painted nails, the row of gaudy silver spider and skull rings with red and black crystal eyes. He watched that hand retreat back into the sleeve and groaned.

 _Fuck_! Sebastian thought.

The one boy on campus Sebastian made it a point to avoid.

The boy who had been expelled days before Sebastian transferred, and then was welcomed back with open arms when his father was elected to Congress.

The boy who, the day he arrived, managed to steal all of Sebastian’s fake i.d. business.

The boy with purple hair, more piercings than a Matses tribesman, and (it was rumored) a SlipKnot tattoo on his dick.

Sebastian had to admit he wouldn’t mind seeing if that rumor was true.

First, he had to get this punk ass out of his sweatshirt.

Sebastian approached the table and stopped, not bothering to sit, waiting for the boy to acknowledge him.

He didn’t.

He licked his index finger, preparing to turn the page. Sebastian couldn’t see his face completely, but he saw his pink tongue flick out from between his lips…and the barbell piercing that went straight through it.

Sebastian cleared his throat.

“Kurt,” Sebastian said.

Kurt didn’t answer right away, but he stopped in the middle of turning his page.

“Sebastian,” Kurt responded dryly. “I thought you went to your folks on the weekends.”

“I usually do,” Sebastian confirmed, “but I didn’t this weekend. Where’s that little virgin ass you’re always trying to tap? Doesn’t he usually follow you around like a puppy and fetch your coffee for you?”

“If you’re referring to Blaine, he’s visiting his brother in L.A.,” Kurt said, returning to his book. “And don’t sound like such a pompous prick. You know you want to nail him, too.”

That mention of Sebastian’s failure was another log added to the fire. It was no secret that Sebastian had been trying to deflower Blushing Blaine Anderson since the moment he arrived at Dalton, but Blaine seemed to prefer twink punks to suave and sophisticated boys such as himself.

No love lost, really, but it still burned like a motherfucker.

“Great, well now that the small talk is out of the way, would you like to tell me what the fuck you’re doing wearing my sweatshirt?”

Kurt still wouldn’t look up at his inquisitor and Sebastian couldn’t stand his contemptuous nonchalance. Kurt glanced down at the sleeve of the hoodie, and then back to his book.

“This isn’t your sweatshirt,” Kurt said.

“The fuck it isn’t,” Sebastian said, the volume of his voice rising.

“Why do you think this is your sweatshirt?” Kurt asked.

“Because, it’s an older Dalton hoodie…”

“Which I bought my first week here,” Kurt cut him off. “I _have_ been at Dalton longer than you, you know.”

“It’s missing a drawstring,” Sebastian continued, laying out his evidence.

“Pfft,” Kurt laughed. “Those fuckers are always the first thing to go. That doesn’t prove shit.”

He turned another page.

“That grass stain,” Sebastian pointed out, “on the shoulder. I got that during lacrosse practice.”

“There’s more than one way to get a grass stain,” Kurt said, finally looking up at Sebastian over the pages of his book, his blue eyes unsettlingly clear as he stared into Sebastian’s face, “and I know all of the fun ones.” Kurt winked and smiled – a smile so suggestively wicked that it almost succeeded in making Sebastian blush.

Sebastian rattled his brain. He knew this was his hoodie. He just knew it. He needed to win this argument hell or high water. He refused to be bested by skanky Kurt Hummel.

“Well, my hoodie had a barbecue sauce stain,” Sebastian said, feeling triumphant, “on the inside right cuff. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get it out.”

Kurt stared unimpressed at Sebastian’s smug face.

“Congratulations,” Kurt said. “You’re a failure at doing laundry.”

“The point is,” Sebastian said with an exaggerated eye roll, “that if _this_ hoodie has the same stain, then it’s definitely mine.”

Kurt raised his eyebrows.

“So?” he asked.

“So, show me your arm,” Sebastian demanded, holding out his hand.

“Not a chance,” Kurt said, turning back to his book, and with that he dismissed Sebastian. Sebastian shook with anger. Sebastian Smythe did not get dismissed. When Kurt reached out his right hand for his coffee, Sebastian pounced on him and grabbed his wrist.

“Hey!” Kurt wailed as Sebastian rolled up the sleeve. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing, asshole?”

“I’m proving once and for all that you’re nothing but a lying little thief—“

Sebastian rolled up the sleeve, but there was no stain. He looked all around the cuff, brought the fabric up to his face, but it was completely clean. Nothing stuck in between the fibers of the fabric, no faded spots. Nothing.

Sebastian was wrong. This wasn’t his sweatshirt.

He had assaulted Kurt Hummel, and this wasn’t even his sweatshirt.

Kurt tsked and tutted with gloat in his voice and amusement dancing in his eyes.

“Sebastian Smythe,” he scolded, “you attacked me over a sweatshirt? I’m pretty sure that physical assault at Dalton is against school policy.”

Sebastian dropped Kurt’s arm and stood up quickly, backing away a step at Kurt’s obvious threat. Usually he would make a snarky remark and name drop that his dad was a state’s attorney, but Sebastian was pretty certain that Congressman trumped state’s attorney any day.

“Sorry,” Sebastian said, head slightly bowed, “my mistake.”

“Ooo, I bet that hurt, didn’t it?” Kurt teased. “To have to apologize and admit you were wrong all in the same sentence.”

Sebastian’s lip curled, but he kept his teeth locked down around his tongue. Kurt watched him warring in his head and decided to go a step further.

“You know, I could call the dean right now and get you suspended…possibly even expelled. I mean, I’ve been victimized.”

Sebastian wasn’t entirely sure that was true, but Dalton did have a no tolerance policy on bullying and assault. He had used that same ruse on other students, and they folded as easily as he was about to. True or not, he wasn’t looking forward to finding out.

“What do I have to do?” Sebastian asked, hoping Kurt would make him part with a few hundred and leave it at that.

“Well,” Kurt said, getting more comfortable, slouching down in his hard backed chair and setting his book on the table, “you back off my little boy toy, not that you had a chance with him anyway…” Kurt chuckled and Sebastian’s jaw tightened till he was sure he was going to break a tooth. “ _And_ , you take me out to dinner…tonight.”

Sebastian’s eyes snapped up and glared at Kurt, sending hordes of murderous daggers his way.

“Fuck you,” Sebastian growled, turning away.

“Ow!” Kurt moaned when Sebastian raised his foot to take a step. Sebastian threw a look over his shoulder and saw Kurt favoring his wrist, holding it up and cradling it tenderly. “I think…” Kurt twisted it slightly and then scowled with pain, “yes. You…you sprained it. Ow!” Kurt hissed through his teeth, but his lips couldn’t stop their grinning.

“Fine, I’ll take you to dinner,” Sebastian grumbled, returning back to his table and his now cold breakfast.

“I’ll shoot you the deets later, muffin butt,” Kurt called over his shoulder, picking up his book and turning back to his bookmarked page. He heard Sebastian mutter, “Fuck you,” again and grinned wider. The sound of Sebastian stabbing angrily at his breakfast plate echoed through the empty hall. Kurt peeked out carefully from behind the voluminous hood and watched him. Kurt turned further into the hood and breathed in deep. It was fading, but he could still catch a trace of it.

Hugo Boss.

Sebastian’s favorite cologne.

The boy practically bathed in it, which was why it had taken so long for the smell to begin to fade. He took another sniff, focusing on the scent, wondering what it might smell like up close, on Sebastian’s neck…or maybe on his naked chest.

Sebastian startled him, showing up at breakfast. He was normally gone Friday through Sunday, which was how Kurt managed to steal the hoodie to begin with. He only ever wore it to bed except for the weekends when Sebastian was gone. Then he didn’t take it off.

It had been a bitch getting that stain out of the sleeve, but a lot of elbow grease, determination, and about a half dozen Tide To Go stain remover pens later and you couldn’t tell it was ever there. He had intended on returning it, but now, it seemed, he really didn’t have to. All he had to do was wait for Sebastian to leave campus so he could break back into his room and give it another spritz of cologne to refresh the smell.

He pulled out his iPhone. He’d figure out the particulars of that adventure later. For now, he had to find the most expensive restaurant in Westerville and make reservations.

 

 


	124. Tiger Momma

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In response to this anon prompt - Could you please write mpreg!Kurt with Sebastian wanting to rub Kurt’s belly but their pet dog/cat stands guard over Kurt and won’t let Sebastian near Kurt? XD Inspired by youtube videos like this one /watch?v=zKigConPX90
> 
> Warning for mpreg, language. FutureFic, AU, romance, angst.

Sebastian glares with rampant, burning contempt into the feline eyes staring back at him while he nurses his newly injured right hand.

“Tell me again why we adopted this little rabid motherfucker?” he asks his completely unperturbed husband. Sebastian is cordoned off to one end of the sofa while Kurt and his overly protective orange tabby, Tigger, sit comfortably cuddled together at the other end. Kurt’s eyes shift sideways to glance at his injured husband. He makes a sympathetic yet condescending face, adding an ‘ _awww’_ for good measure, then turns back to the pages of the _Parents_ magazine balanced against the swell of his seven-month along belly. Tigger curls up beside his right hip, purring contentedly, knowing that her adversary has been put in his place.

“We adopted this beautiful, majestic creature,” Kurt coos, running a hand down the length of the cat’s body, “because we saw her profile online, we fell in love with her instantly, and we didn’t want her to be put down…just because she happens to be older than the other kitties.” Kurt whispers the last part with a protective hand over the cat’s ears to keep from hurting her feelings.

Kurt always did that when he mentioned their cat’s _advanced_ age.

Sebastian rolls his eyes. The cat is all of three-years-old. Still, even though he’d never admit it, he honestly thinks that the way Kurt is so protective of her feelings is adorable. Slightly insane, but adorable.

That’s how he knew Kurt would make an excellent father.

None of that soothes the sting of his marred hand.

“I thought we had an understanding,” Sebastian complains, more to the cat than to Kurt. “Weren’t we pals once, you little piece of shit?”

“The vet says this behavior is normal,” Kurt says with little concern. “It’s just the tiger in her showing. Everything will go back to business as usual once the baby comes. You two might even like each other again by then.”

“So, I’m not supposed to touch you until then?” Sebastian raises his voice, alarmed.

Kurt simply smiles and turns another page.

“Sebastian, I think you’re overreacting a tad.”

“Overreacting?” Now Sebastian’s yelling. He raises his hand and shakes it in the air, trying to draw Kurt’s attention away from his magazine to look at the three angry red marks dug into his skin. “Does this look like I’m overreacting? That bitch could have given me cat scratch disease! What, with her little furry paws scratching at her kitty litter.” Sebastian shudders, shoving his wounded hand beneath his arm to keep it safe.

Kurt sighs, shaking his head.

“Well, she doesn’t sleep with us, and she doesn’t shower with us. So you can touch me then,” Kurt resolves, stroking the cat again.

Sebastian immediately stops his sulking and grins, imagining the possibilities. Kurt has never been fond of his new curves, but Sebastian thinks they’re hot, and he knows that as soon as their baby is born, Kurt is going to find the quickest way to make them disappear. With his naturally slender physique, that shouldn’t be too much of a problem. So, Sebastian wants the chance to enjoy them for as long as he can.

“Oh yeah?” he asks, forgetting about his hand and moving closer. “So, if we take a shower together, I can touch you?”

“Of course, you can, Bas,” Kurt says, turning his head to stare into his husband’s darkening eyes, “anywhere you like.”

“And, afterward, when we go to bed…” Sebastian crawls closer.

“We can go to bed naked, if you want,” Kurt says, luring him in with a lick of his lips and a flick of his blue eyes down to Sebastian’s hungry mouth.

“And maybe we can _SHIT! SHIT! MOTHERFUCKING SHIT_!” Sebastian bellows as the cat, all of her signs of warning ignored – her flattened ears, her flicking tail, her eyes with pupils narrowing at Sebastian’s approach – lashes out with one deft paw and attacks his uninjured hand as it reaches out to caress Kurt’s swollen stomach.

“It’ll happen, baby,” Kurt says, trying to sound as reassuring as possible when all he wants to do is double over and laugh. “You’re just going to have to be patient and wait.”

“Fine,” Sebastian pouts, retreating back to his end of the couch, sneering at the cat who stares back at him with a look of quiet satisfaction at a job well done. “And you,” he says, pointing in the animal’s direction, “I’ve got your number, you furry piece of shit. You’d better watch your back.”

The cat hisses unexpectedly and Sebastian jumps. Kurt snickers and Sebastian’s cheeks redden.

“I’m going to clean up and make dinner,” he mutters.

Kurt laughs him out of the room, shaking his head.

Sebastian storms off into the kitchen. Kurt can hear a clash of pots and pans as Sebastian continues his tantrum while he cooks.

“She’s just a little cat,” Kurt calls out to his husband while he pets the purring feline. “Look at your life right now, Bas.”


	125. A List of Firsts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Twelve-year-old Kurt and Sebastian have to cross as many firsts off their bucket list as possible before Sebastian’s family moves to France, and Kurt’s separated from his best friend for the rest of his young life. Kurt’s pretty sure he knows them all, figuring in his head how many they can get through in the coming two weeks. But there’s one first on Sebastian’s list that Kurt doesn’t know about.
> 
> Written for the Kurtbastian Hiatus Project prompt first kiss.
> 
> Fluffy, romance, AU.

“But…but I don’t want you to go to France!” Kurt whimpered into his cupped hands that covered his face, repeating a sentiment he’d expressed over a hundred times in the last five minutes. “I don’t want to lose my best friend!”

“You’re not going to lose me,” Sebastian insisted, trying to unravel the tightly curled ball that was Kurt Hummel and failing. Kurt wailed plaintively while Sebastian could do little to comfort him. Sebastian blew out a frustrated breath through clenched teeth, cursing in his head. He wasn’t upset at his best friend. In fact, he had expected this reaction. He’d never admit it to Kurt, but he cried for an entire day when his parents told him they were returning to their estate in France, and not just for summer vacation. This time they were going to try living abroad, to be closer to his mom’s family.

It seemed that visiting every vacation and holiday wasn’t enough for his grandparents and cousins. Now they needed them around 24/7.

His parents claimed the two of them had been discussing the matter over for a while now, but it came out of the blue for Sebastian. They told him on his birthday, thinking that he would be overwhelmed with joy or something. Apparently they felt he wanted nothing more in the world than to leave his home, his school, everyone he’d known his entire life, and most especially, his best friend, Kurt.

Happy fucking birthday.

When Kurt’s whimpers turned into choking sobs, Sebastian sighed again and wrapped an arm around his friend’s shoulders.

“Hey,” he said, squeezing him lightly, “this isn’t good-bye forever.”

“It…it isn’t?” Kurt stuttered, scooting toward Sebastian’s body so he could hold him closer.

“No way,” Sebastian said. “Not by a long shot. And besides, I’ll email you and text, and call you every day. I’m never saying good-bye to you.”

Kurt nodded, comforted but still feeling like his entire world was coming completely apart.

“B-but…we had a whole bunch of firsts we were going to try and cross off our list before college, remember?”

Kurt sniffled and Sebastian handed him a tissue.

“I know,” Sebastian said softly. He chewed the inside of his cheek and thought about the list they had made – things like _learn to make a soufflé, play a full game of croquet_ , and _paddle a kayak_ were on Kurt’s side of the list, while _participate in a mud run, build a tree fort_ , and _sleep out under the stars without a tent_ were on Sebastian’s side. A lot of those were pretty doable. They could even start today if their parents would let them. “Hey, we’re not leaving till the end of this month, so that gives us two weeks to cross off as many as we can.”

Kurt lifted his eyes, watery blue and red from crying, to meet Sebastian’s.

“Do…do you think we can do it?” Kurt asked, dabbing at his eyes with the tissue.

“Sure,” Sebastian said with a shrug. “I don’t see why not.”

Kurt nodded, the shadow of a smile growing on his lips.

“Sure,” Kurt parroted, “why not? Where do you want to start? My dad’s not home, so we can’t use the oven.”

“And the only tree we can really build a fort in is in my front yard,” Sebastian said. “We can sleep outside, but we have to wait a couple of hours.”

“I have the croquet set in the garage,” Kurt offered, his eyes lighting up. “We can play that until nightfall.”

Sebastian smiled, a thought crossing his mind.

“And, there’s actually one more thing we can cross off.”

“Really?” Kurt asked, his eyes wide with excitement at their plan. “Which one?”

“This one,” Sebastian said. He moved quickly, afraid that if he gave himself another minute to think it over, he might chicken out. Or Kurt might catch on and move away. Sebastian gently cupped trembling hands around Kurt’s face and pressed his lips against Kurt’s. It wasn’t much of a kiss. It might not even classify as a kiss to anyone who could have done it better, but for Sebastian, it was the biggest first he had been looking forward to crossing off.

When he pulled away, Kurt’s eyes were wide with shock and his pale cheeks flushed a pretty shade of pink. Sebastian bit his lip and looked down at his feet, trying to hide the heat in his own cheeks that was a little bit excitement and a whole lot of fear.

“Wh…where was _that_ on the list?” Kurt asked through tingling lips, afraid to move them lest the sensation of that kiss evaporate away.

“Um…it was on mine,” Sebastian confessed, chancing a glance back at Kurt and relaxing when he saw the smile on his face.

“Are kisses always going to be that nice?” Kurt asked as his cheeks began to burn brighter.

Sebastian shrugged.

“I guess we’ll find out.”

Kurt chuckled, imaging that - imaging a future of kisses as amazing as that one, when suddenly his face crumbled, his hands rising up to shield his face again. He shook his head, crying new tears.

“What is it?” Sebastian asked, petrified that somehow - even after the blushing, even after the smile - that Kurt didn’t really want to be kissed, and now he would never forgive Sebastian for taking that away from him. “Did I…did I do something wrong?”

Kurt shook his head so hard his neck cracked.

“Then what is it?” Sebastian wrapped his arms around Kurt and held him tight.

“I…I don’t want to find out with anyone else,” he sobbed.

***

“And that’s when you knew?” Kurt asks with surprise. He turns away from the wedding ring on his finger where it rests against Sebastian’s matching ring to stare up into his husband’s face.

“Yup,” Sebastian replies with a smug grin, wrapping his arms tighter around Kurt’s body. “That’s when I knew.”

“But…you must have kissed a hundred guys since then,” Kurt says, hoping Sebastian will disagree. “I mean…that was our _first_ kiss. We were only twelve.”

Sebastian leans over and kisses Kurt full on the mouth, savoring the taste of the mojitos that Kurt had decided to indulge in since it was the first night of their honeymoon, and they had nothing else to do then just sit in a hammock on the beach and _be_ with each other.

“What can I say?” Sebastian whispers against Kurt’s cheek. “Even back then you were one hell of a kisser.”


	126. Seven First Dates

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the Kurtbastian Hiatus Project prompt first date.
> 
> Warning for foul language and mention of Blaine.

“So, I like going on long walks…candlelit dinners…moonlight in the city…”

The sound of the man’s inane chatter peters off as Kurt focuses his attention solely on the small timer on the table, praying that it would go off now…now…now.

Crap.

Kurt’s face ached from forcing a look of genuine interest onto it for the last half an hour. It was a mask to hide the fact that three words in he stopped listening.

Kurt had seen six men so far and their answers had all been the same. What did they feel was the perfect first date? Long walks (either in the park or on the beach), candlelit dinners (or picnics), and finding a rooftop to look at the moonlight in the city (retro 1980s Christopher Cross). When the first man had said it, Kurt thought the comment was adorably cliché, until he realized the man was being serious. When every other man after him had said something similar, Kurt suddenly became less interested in speed dating and more interested in shoving a knife into his own eye to relieve the pain.

Unfortunately, there were no utensils on any of the tables.

Kurt was barely through a third of the first group of guys and he already wanted to run screaming.

He heard snickering coming from the line of waiting men, and not just the nervous tittering of grown men acting like anxious teenagers that had begun to turn Kurt’s stomach. It turned into honest to God laughter by the time the buzzer went off signaling that this potential suitor’s five minutes was through and a new victim got to take the hot seat.

The next man sat down, but it was Kurt who started sweating.

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t Gay Pride’s answer to the eternal question what _not_ to wear.”

Kurt looked steadily into the demonically smug face and mocking green eyes he knew all too well, unwilling to back down.

This was about to become the longest five minutes of his life.

Now he knew why they didn’t leave the utensils on the tables. If he had a butter knife within reach, someone would have gotten stabbed.

“Look who’s here!” Kurt exclaimed, a little too enthusiastically in his attempt to cover his total disdain, “none other than Sebastian Smythe, the biggest French whore of the Upper East Side.”

Sebastian tried his best to pout, but his signature smirk was affixed too firmly in place to allow that to happen.

“Now, Kurt,” he said, at least managing an offended tone of voice, “why would you say something mean and hurtful like that?”

“You _are_ the only person I know of who can make it into the society pages for what you _didn’t_ wear and not for what you did,” Kurt said, folding his hands in front of him on the table.

“You streak one heiress’s Sweet Sixteen party, and you never live it down.” Sebastian rolled his eyes, folding his hands on the table, mimicking Kurt’s prim posture. “Regardless, I _do_ have a rep to protect.”

“And what rep is that?” Kurt asked. “Open 24 hours?”

“Ouch,” Sebastian said, giving Kurt a wink. Kurt threw his head back and laughed, not even realizing that this was the first “date” he had so far where he hadn’t glanced down at the timer on the table once to see how much longer the torture would endure.

“So, why are you even here? Where is Blainers?” Sebastian looked over the tables to the other couples wrapping up their short conversations. “Are you guys finally trying to find a third wheel to join you in your freakishly disturbing sex life? I’m a little offended that you didn’t just call me.”

Before Kurt could answer, his buzzer went off.

“Oh,” Kurt said, not sure why he didn’t feel relieved that his time with Sebastian was up, “time to move on, I guess.”

“Pfft.” Sebastian grabbed the timer and reset it for five minutes. The next man in line stepped up to Kurt’s table and glared. When Sebastian didn’t automatically relinquish his seat, the man cleared his throat. Kurt’s eyes flicked up toward the aggravated man, but Sebastian kept his gaze fixed on Kurt’s face, waiting for an answer to his question.

“Uhh…” Kurt muttered, trying to get Sebastian to at least acknowledge the man looming over them, but Sebastian obviously could care less.

“Excuse me,” the man finally barked out, tapping his foot right beside Sebastian’s black Oxford.

“Why?” Sebastian said, his eyes not moving from Kurt’s face. “Did you fart or something?”

Kurt laughed through the tension when the man beside them gasped with horror.

“What did you say?” he hissed.

“Look, Twinkle Toes,” Sebastian said, finally turning to address the man fully, his eyes looking him up and down once, “I forgive you for whatever you did…not for that Fantastic Sam’s haircut, but you’re being kind of rude here.”

The man stared with his mouth hanging open, at a complete loss for a comeback, one hand coming up to the crown of his head in defense of his hair. The re-set buzzer went off again, and Sebastian huffed.

“Now, look at that,” he said, grabbing the timer and setting it for another five minutes. “You’ve wasted all that time interrupting us when that nice man over there…” Sebastian gestured blindly behind him toward the next table, “was looking forward to your enthralling company.”

The man looked to Kurt for help, and Kurt tried to look sympathetic, but he couldn’t. His haircut _was_ atrocious, and Kurt was willing to bet his favorite Ferragamo shoes that this man liked long walks and candlelit dinners.

Shit. Now he owed Sebastian one.

The jilted man stuck his nose in the air and walked on by when Kurt made no move to get rid of Sebastian and give him a chance.

Sebastian turned back to Kurt – whose eyes were shining with suppressed laughter causing him to tear up – and folded his hands on the table again.

“So, you were telling me why you’re alone here on a Saturday night subjecting yourself to speed dating when last I heard you were engaged.” Sebastian unfolded his hands and grabbed for Kurt’s left hand, catching it before Kurt could snatch it away. “Ah! And no ring.” Kurt pulled his hand away and shoved it beneath the table. “Mr. Hummel, are you stepping out on your man?”

Kurt knew that Sebastian was just teasing, but the topic of Blaine still stung. But Kurt was going to be an adult about this. They weren’t in high school, anymore.

“We broke up,” Kurt said, looking up from the table and meeting Sebastian’s eyes.

“Oh,” Sebastian said, looking confused. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“Yeah?” Kurt said with a dry chuckle. “Why do you care?”

“Because, I thought Blaine made you happy,” Sebastian said with less arrogance.

Kurt nodded.

“He did, for a while,” Kurt agreed, “but apparently I wasn’t the only one making _him_ happy.”

“Oh,” Sebastian mouthed, his expression turning blank. Not knowing the appropriate response for this particular situation, he sat up and swept his eyes over the room again.

“So, how many of these have you been on so far?” he asked. “Any potential love interests?”

Sebastian wiggled his eyebrows and despite the melancholy of the conversation previous, Kurt chuckled lightly.

“You’re my seventh first date,” Kurt said, “and no. Everyone here seems to be obsessed with long walks and candlelit dinners.”

Sebastian scoffed.

“Yeah, well that’s because you’re a diamond stuck in the middle of a loser cattle call.”

Kurt jerked back, astonished at Sebastian Smythe referring to him as _a diamond_.

“What happens when you do find Mr. Right?” Sebastian asked, continuing the conversation as if he hadn’t said anything out of the ordinary. “Do you guys just leave this rabble behind and ride off into the sunset?”

“Well, we…” Kurt started, and then stumbled to a stop, perplexed, “wait, you should know. You signed up to be here.”

“Nope.” Sebastian leaned in and grinned his most wicked grin. “I saw you through the window, so I thought I’d come in and annoy the shit out of you.”

Kurt looked shocked, but only for a second before he laughed again.

“If I find someone I like, I think I fill out one of these cards.” Kurt picked up a white business card off the table and held it up. Sebastian plucked it out of Kurt’s fingers and flipped it over.

“Lame,” Sebastian commented, tossing the card down on the table. “Come on. We’re blowing this crapfest.”

Kurt’s eyes went wide. Leaving sounded like a dream come true, but leaving with Sebastian?

Would that be safe?

Or sane?

Maybe not, but it sounded like it could be fun, especially when all that he had to look forward to for the rest of the evening was a long line of New York’s most desperate bachelors.

“I’m supposed to be here for another…” Kurt looked down at his watch and his whole body deflated like a defective balloon, “another hour.”

Sebastian looked left and right, and shrugged, his face reflecting his thoughts on the absurd bullshit that was speed dating.

“Who the fuck’s going to keep you here?” Sebastian argued. “Besides, if you come with me, you might end up on the society page.”

Sebastian stood and offered Kurt his hand, waiting patiently for the man to accept.

Kurt looked at Sebastian’s hand and followed it up to his face.

“Come on,” Sebastian mouthed, beckoning him with his fingers and motioning toward to door with his head.

“Sure,” Kurt said, slapping his hand down on his buzzer to stop the timer and rising from his seat. “Why not? It’s about time I started seeing my face in the paper.”


	127. You Push, I Pull

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daddy Dom Sebastian has a special surprise planned for his baby boy Kurt (featuring Dom!Elliott).
> 
> Written for the anon prompt daddy!kink. Warnings for D/s, daddy kink, age difference (not underage), three-way dp, anal sex, hand jobs, dirty talk, smut…but kind of sweet, too.

In the low-light of the bedroom – the blind slots open just enough to let in the fading last golden rays of the sun - the exceptionally trim man with the coal colored hair and the pale, blue eyes looks even more stunning than he did hours before during dinner. He moves, pulling almost completely out of Kurt’s pliant body, and then shoving back in again, and Kurt shivers.

“Do you like that, baby?” Sebastian whispers to his limp and sweaty boyfriend, whose body is draped on top of his, trembling with every push and pull of the cock sliding inside him.

“Yes, Daddy,” Kurt murmurs, his lips heavy with exhaustion like the rest of his spent body.

Kurt is nearly drenched in sweat, his stomach covered in drying cum, his cock flaccid from overuse. Other than the subtle ripple of his muscles throughout his body, Kurt hasn’t moved. Other than uttering soft, sated whimpers, he hasn’t spoken. He stares glassy eyed at the man moving above him. Sebastian, his cock still achingly hard, hasn’t moved either in over an hour, content to be buried deep inside his sub while he lets Elliott, another Dom from the club they frequent, do all the work.

“Is this what baby wanted?” Sebastian asks, eyeing the sexy man pounding steadily into his boyfriend. “Was this what you were thinking when you begged to be stuffed full of cock?”

Kurt takes a deep breath, preparing to answer, but one more push by Elliott takes his breath completely away. So instead Kurt nods and mutters something that sounds vaguely like _yes, Daddy_.

“Do you like my friend?” Sebastian asks, threading his fingers through the spaces between Kurt’s fingers and holding his hands at his sides. “Do you like having him join us here in the playroom?”

“Oh, yes,” Kurt breathes without a second thought. Both men chuckle at his eager answer, and Kurt’s half-lidded eyes go wide. “B-but, not more than you, Daddy. I swear…”

“That’s alright,” Sebastian says, brushing the clumped strands of Kurt’s bangs away from his eyes so he can see Elliott better. Sebastian kisses him on the cheek. “It’s alright if you like him. That means we have someone else to play with. Right, Elliott?”

“Yeah,” Elliott grunts, a sustained sound that goes from a word to a moan. “Anytime.”

Kurt’s head is lolled slightly over Sebastian’s shoulder, his neck bent backward, giving Sebastian free reign over the unblemished skin stretched out beside his face. Sebastian sucks a mark onto Kurt’s neck, concentrating on the bruise he’s making to take his mind off of Elliott’s cock sliding against his inside Kurt’s tight ass. He doesn’t want to blow his load until he gets Kurt alone.

Kurt groans, a mixture of fatigue and his body succumbing to the burn of being stretched so wide for so long. Sebastian gets a mental picture of the gaping hole Kurt’s going to have when this is all over.

He almost cums from that thought alone.

“How are you holding up, baby?”

“Daddy,” Kurt whimpers, his voice breathy, rough, “I don’t…” Kurt pauses for a moment and swallows when Elliott pushes in deeper, “I don’t think I can hold on much longer.”

“Oh, yes you can,” Sebastian coos, “just long enough for our friend here to finish, and then it’ll just be you and me, baby. So, I need you to hold on until then. Can you do that for me?”

Kurt closes his eyes and nods, preparing for what he knows is coming. He wants time with his Daddy alone.

He’s willing to wait.

Sebastian watches Kurt start to slip into that place in his brain where the world stops spinning, time suspends, his mind is compliance and his body is all sensation beyond his control.

Sebastian looks up at Elliott. He notices the change, too.

“Go ahead, Elliott,” Sebastian says.

The other Dom finds their discarded bottle of lube on the bed somewhere in the vicinity of his right knee. He snaps open the lid and squeezes out a generous dollop over his cock. He doesn’t want to hurt Kurt. Elliott tries not to touch himself too much. He’s been on the edge of cumming for about as long as his companions. It’s a personal triumph that he hasn’t given in already, but this isn’t just any other dp fuck. This night is special, and he did his best to make it last.

 _As long as you can_ , Sebastian had said. _Fill him up and keep him wanting, and when he’s had enough, I’ll take care of the rest._

Sebastian said he came to Elliott because he wanted the very best for his baby.

It was a pretty generous stroke to Elliott’s ego.

Elliott closes the bottle and tosses it aside. He lifts Kurt’s legs up, hooking each one through his arms and over his elbows, and without any warning, pounds into Kurt fast.

Kurt’s brow creases and he bites his lip, trying to stay relaxed and let this man own his body like the obedient baby boy he is.

“I can’t cum if he doesn’t scream,” Elliott moans. It isn’t exactly true. He just likes to hear his subs scream. Not in pain, but with abandon, and he’s dying to hear that high pitched voice scream for him.

“Go ahead, Kurt,” Sebastian urges. “Go ahead and scream for our friend.”

Kurt rolls his head on Sebastian’s shoulder until his temple rests against his Dom’s cheek.

“B-but if I scream,” Kurt says with a whimper, “then I’ll cum.”

“No, you won’t,” Sebastian says firmly, “because you’re a good boy, and good boys do what they’re told. So, scream for our friend. He’s been so good to you. Don’t you think he deserves a reward?”

Kurt nods, and sweat that has begun to bead along his brow while he fights his own body’s need for release rolls down his face. Kurt doesn’t bide quite so hard. He resists a little of his instinct to fight, and the more that Elliott pounds into him, the more Kurt can feel the frustration of renewed arousal building up inside him until he can’t hold it in any longer.

“God!” he cries, arching his back, shaking from the stress on his body, struggling with the urge to slip back into his sub-space and escape it.

“That’s it,” Elliott says, his hips starting to stutter, “a little more.”

Kurt screams out in earnest, a non-stop thread of sound with no coherent or discernible words attached.

“Fuck yeah,” Elliott moans, the push and pull ending as his hips slow to a stop.

Kurt collapses back against Sebastian, and Sebastian kisses him on the cheek.

“Look at that,” Elliott says as he pulls out, admiring Kurt’s growing erection, “after all of that, he’s hard for you again. You’re a lucky man.”

“Don’t I know it,” Sebastian agrees, wrapping his arms around Kurt’s torso. “He’s such an angel - a beautiful angel with an amazing ass.”

Sebastian watches Elliott dress, laughing at the way his knees quake and knock together when he reaches down to pull up his pants. Elliott rolls his eyes, but laughs along with him.

“Thanks a mill for inviting me.” Elliott leans over the couple and kisses Sebastian full on the mouth, taking his time to savor this last kiss before leaving. Sebastian bucks his hips up once into Kurt and moans past Elliott’s lips, stealing a moment to enjoy Kurt’s tight ass along with Elliott’s talented tongue. Elliott pulls away from Sebastian’s mouth with a soft whimper and kisses Kurt chastely on the forehead. “Good-bye, sweetheart,” he says to the sub who can barely turn his head to look at him. “Happy birthday.”

“Thank you,” Kurt mouths with a weak smile.

“Can you get the door?” Sebastian calls after Elliott, wrapping his fingers around Kurt’s cock and stroking. Kurt whines, not daring to fuck up into his Daddy’s fist or he might pull out and stop before Kurt has the chance to cum again.

“Yeah, Bas. I got it,” Elliott calls back. Kurt hears the door open and close, and then they’re alone.

“So, you like my friend from the club?” Sebastian says against Kurt’s neck.

“Y-yes, Daddy,” Kurt answers, shuddering when Sebastian’s hand speeds up.

“But not as much as you like me, huh?” Sebastian’s voice is teasing, but his body is urgent, pounding up into Kurt’s body until he nearly lifts them both off the bed.

“Not as much as you, Daddy,” Kurt moans, his voice wavering. “Never.”

“I like that,” Sebastian says with a hum of approval that Kurt can feel travel from his Dom’s lips pressed against his neck to points all over his body. Sebastian tries to time the movement of his hand to the rhythm of his cock, but from time to time his tense arm spasms. It doesn’t matter. He can see Kurt’s restless limbs trying hard to keep still while his mind forces his body to submit. “You’ve been such a good boy for me, baby. Should I let you cum before you pass out?”

“Yes,” Kurt whines, desperately, “yes, Daddy. Let me cum.”

“Say please,” Sebastian says, his stern tone a tad condescending.

“Please, Daddy,” Kurt mewls pitifully, “please let me cum.”

Sebastian slows down the movement of his hand on Kurt’s shaft, and Kurt’s body slumps. He almost dissolves into tears.

“You know what Daddy likes to hear,” Sebastian says, digging deep to maintain his composure so he doesn’t ride Kurt hard enough to break him in two.

“Fuck me, Daddy,” Kurt cries. “Please, fuck me, Daddy!”

“Keep it up.” Sebastian resumes his assault with his fist over Kurt’s cock, his hand moving until it’s a blur in the dimming light. “Keep saying what I want to hear or you won’t cum.”

“Fuck me, Daddy! Fuck me, Daddy! Fuck me, Daddy!” Kurt chants through moans, through tears, until his voice is hoarse and thick, on the verge of giving in to his rising orgasm.

“That’s it, baby,” Sebastian says with the grin of a predator on his wrecked face. “Keep going. Daddy’s cumming. I want you to be a good boy and cum, too.”

Always aiming to please, always a sucker for his Daddy’s approval, Kurt cums over Sebastian’s fist, his body rigid as Sebastian pounds inside him harder a few more times, sinking his teeth into Kurt’s shoulder as he surrenders to his own release.

“Heavenly fuck,” Sebastian mutters, removing his mouth from Kurt’s shoulder and admiring the mark he leaves behind.

No one ever questions who Kurt belongs to. The bite marks on his shoulders are always definitive proof.

Kurt becomes boneless, listless, unable to move, unwilling to try. He lies on Sebastian’s body, his lungs working hard to suck in air, his chest heaving with the effort.

“You really know how to wear an old guy out,” Sebastian jokes, lifting Kurt’s body off of his only as far as necessary to slip out from underneath. He sits for a moment at the edge of the bed, feet flat on the floor. He runs his hands over his face, trying to slow his breathing and his racing heart enough to stand and collect the things he needs to take care of his worn-out sub. He takes this moment to delicately remove the condom from his sensitive cock, wincing more than once when he’s not delicate enough.

“Mmm, you’re not old,” Kurt objects, his eyes shut, his eyelids fluttering in an attempt to open but failing.

“Well, thirty-five sure feels hella old when the love of your life is only twenty-three,” Sebastian says. He stands up on wobbly legs and walks the short distance to the bathroom, returning a short while after with a wet washcloth and a bottle of baby oil. He drops carefully back down on the bed so as not to jostle his sleepy sub.

“You’re not old,” Kurt mumbles. “You’ll never be old. You’ll always be my gorgeous Daddy.”

Sebastian sighs, wiping Kurt down with the warm, damp cloth, cleaning away the sweat from his skin and the cum from his stomach.

 _Young_ , Sebastian thinks. _He looks so young like this. So sweet and trusting._

Sweet and trusting has always been a turn-on for Sebastian, but with Kurt it’s different. It’s more.

Sebastian wasn’t lying when he said Kurt was the love of his life. He meant it. He wants Kurt. He wants to keep him forever.

“I’m here for you, baby,” Sebastian says, following the movement of the cloth over Kurt’s perfect skin, “for as long as you want me.”

Kurt smiles with a little laugh that doesn’t get much farther than his pink lips.

“Good,” Kurt says in a childish voice, yawning as soon as he opens his mouth, “because I want to keep you.”

Baby talk.

Kurt does it when he’s on the brink of falling asleep.

Sebastian smiles.

“And you’ll do what I say?” Sebastian asks, setting the wash cloth aside and opening the bottle of oil.

“Yup,” Kurt responds, though the short syllable trails off at the _p_ when another yawn comes out of Kurt’s mouth to claim it, and the word sounds more like _yu_.

“Then go to sleep,” Sebastian whispers. “I’ll clean you up, I’ll tuck you in, and in a few hours, when all of your friends get here, we’ll get your birthday party started. Okay, baby?”

The only answer Sebastian gets is silence and the rumble of a snore. Sebastian laughs, warming up the oil between his hands and rubbing it into Kurt’s shoulders.

“I’ll take that as a _yes_.”


	128. The Impossible Test

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sebastian is chosen for the honor of representing his territory in an annual event called ‘The Impossible Test’. At the training center, he meets Kurt…and that’s all I’m telling you ;)
> 
> For the anon prompt ‘dystopian AU’.

Sebastian stepped out of the transport that delivered him to the training center, the fantastic fanfare that saw him off still ringing in his ears. Eleven long years he had waited, dreaming of volunteering since he was six. Even at that tender age, he saw himself as a natural-born victor. Of course, no one _knew_ for certain what a victor of The Impossible Test looked like. They never returned to their territories, and rightfully so. After winning The Impossible Test, it was assumed that victors earned their places in high society – government employment, penthouse apartments, a life of luxury. Once a volunteer left their home for the training center, they were never seen nor heard from again. The only evidence a territory got that their volunteer had won was the enormous wealth and numerous other prizes that the government showered upon them.

Losing territories were punished, often times in the form of a fine. These hefty fines bankrupted many territories. Even the richer territories, the ones that consistently won, could be bankrupted by a single loss, which is why the competition to become a volunteer was so steep, the preparation rigorous and demanding. The second children displayed “volunteer potential”, they started studying immediately, and it took over their entire lives. Nearly every waking moment was devoted to it. Sebastian’s territory had been among the winners the last twenty-two years, and he was determined to make this year twenty-three.

Even though Sebastian had been informed of his appointment to The Impossible Test weeks before, he was still buzzing from the thrill of being chosen. His territory boasted the greatest number of volunteers every year. Hundreds of children applied for the honor of being considered. But Sebastian was _chosen_. He was the best overall – mentally and physically. Sebastian carried the hopes of his territory with him. His classmates envied him. People he’d never met before stopped him on the street and shook his hand. His last week at home, he was treated like a king. Even his judgmental ass of a father finally started treating him with some respect.

But as great as the notoriety and popularity of being named a volunteer felt, Sebastian couldn’t wait to actually _win_.

Today was the first day of the rest of his life.

After getting settled in his room – a small living space made to be mostly utilitarian in form and function – he ducked out of the official tour of the training facility and decided to scope the place out on his own. He needed time to himself after the flurry of attention and activity to clear his head, get his bearings.

The training center was its own territory, set apart from the rest by miles of treacherous, wild, uninhabited country, and crossable solely by an underground railway system. One train originated from each territory, accessible only by authorized government personnel and volunteers.

That meant Sebastian was among the elite.

He could definitely get used to that.

He spent his whole day exploring the grounds, wandering through the city, popping in and out of shops that sold merchandise he’d never seen before, and listening to people speak in languages he’d never heard. It was a whole new world, and he tried to absorb every inch of it, daydreaming of where his place would be in this society after he won.

He made his way outside the city to a vast expanse of green grass and tall trees that grew up suddenly the minute the sidewalk ended. He took a gravel trail through them, marked every ten feet or so with signs that had the name of a victor on it. Sebastian smiled. He knew about this park. His guide on the train had mentioned it. Each sign was erected in honor of those who had won The Impossible Test. He noticed a few familiar sounding names – volunteers from his territory who had won in the past. He wondered if they walked through here from time to time to gaze upon the sign with their name on it and relive their victory. He tried to envision the perfect spot for _his_ sign. Maybe over by the clearing, where the God rays streamed in through the leaves, or by that small patch of Forget-Me-Nots, provided they bloomed there every year, of course.

There had to be a caretaker or someone he could ask - nonchalantly, so he didn’t seem too full of himself.

Sebastian didn’t feel he _was_  full of himself, per se. He was simply confident in his abilities.

There was no sin in rooting for the best man to win.

Farther down the now winding path that ran between the trees, he heard tapping, like the sharp _thut-thut-thut_ of a woodpecker knocking on bark. Sebastian looked around in the hopes of catching a peek at the bird. There were so many of them in his territory, and though he wasn’t homesick, it would be nice to see one again.

But the sound wasn’t coming from a bird, but a boy – a melancholy-looking rail of a boy – tapping the side of a tree with a stick. From this distance and with his back turned, all Sebastian could see was that he appeared to be the same height as him, with light brown hair, the same shade as the nuts that fell from the chestnut trees back home. As Sebastian got closer, he noticed this boy was much paler than him, lithe and thin to the point of looking malnourished. The boy must have heard the ground crunch beneath Sebastian’s feet because he turned his head, fixing Sebastian with eyes that shined a brilliant periwinkle in the golden sunlight. The boy didn’t seem startled by Sebastian’s approach, just wary. Even so, he returned to his tree, tapping his stick against the trunk.

“Hey,” Sebastian called.

“Hey,” the boy called back. “Are you lost?” His voice was high and soft – lilting and musical, but also sad.

“No,” Sebastian replied, though he didn’t find the need to mention that he probably wasn’t supposed to be there in the first place. “I’m out for a little walk. I just got here today.”

The boy nodded once and stopped his tapping.

“You’re here to take The Impossible Test.”

“Yes, I am,” Sebastian said with pride in his response. The boy must have heard it, too, because he scoffed. “My name’s Sebastian. What’s your name?”

The boy sighed deeply, debating for a moment before responding.

“My name is Kurt.”

“Kurt,” Sebastian repeated. “Are you here for The Impossible Test, too?”

“You can say that.” Kurt held the stick in both hands, bending it in the middle until it almost broke, then letting go so it could snap back straight. “I was a participant in last year’s Impossible Test.”

“So, you’re a victor?” Sebastian asked, his eyes lighting up.

“No.” Kurt shook his head, his gaze focused on the stick in his hands. “I failed, so I’m taking it again.”  

Sebastian could feel the devastation roll off Kurt’s body through his slowly spoken words and his long, dramatic sighs. He felt so sorry for him. He was a beautiful boy – a sorrowfully, heartbreakingly beautiful boy. It would be amazing to have this boy as his friend ... as long as it didn’t get in the way of his winning.

But if they both won, they would be in the city together.

Who knew where that might lead?

“Well, at least you get to try again,” Sebastian consoled him, but he understood why Kurt was upset.

Losing The Impossible Test was no small matter. It had devastating consequences.

“You get five chances total to win The Impossible Test,” Kurt explained, “but because of my failure, my territory was fined.” Kurt bent the stick again until Sebastian heard it crack. “The fine for my territory was so high, it turned them into the poorest territory in the country. Even if I win this time, it might not be enough for them to recover.” He sniffled. “I---I’ll never forgive myself.”

“I’m sorry,” Sebastian said, but silently he reassured himself that he wasn’t going to let that same thing happen to _his_ territory. He would win. Hell or high water, he would win.

He got an idea. It seemed underhanded considering, but strategically, it was an excellent move. Besides, maybe underhanded wasn’t entirely uncalled for.

He came here to win, after all.

Losing was unthinkable.

“How did you fail?” Sebastian asked, hoping to get some first-hand insight and possibly an advantage. “I mean, no one knows exactly what The Impossible Test is. What’s the objective? What did you do wrong?”

Kurt bent the stick more until Sebastian was sure it would splinter, but it didn’t, and he held it, bowed.

“I … I didn’t die.”

Sebastian stared, dumbfounded, then he chuckled, sure that Kurt was joking. But when Kurt didn’t correct himself, Sebastian stopped laughing. He saw Kurt’s eyes go hard, and his blood went cold.

“What … what do you mean?” Sebastian asked. “What do you mean _you didn’t die_?”

“That’s how you succeed at The Impossible Test,” Kurt said, breaking the stick in half and tossing the pieces away. “Self-sacrifice. They give you a series of tests and challenges to solve, and when you do, you move on to the next level. The final test is a test for survival. But not _your_ survival. _Your territory’s_ survival. If you complete it correctly, you die, but your territory wins.”

Sebastian shook his head. That couldn’t be right! How come no one knew about this? Why would they choose the crème de la crème from each territory just to have them _die_? Sebastian didn’t want to die! He’d only turned seventeen a few months ago! He shouldn’t be expected to die! There had to be a way out!

Kurt said he got five chances. After five chances, then what?

“B-but … but you said you get five tries,” Sebastian said, his heart racing with the onset of panic. “What happens after five tries? Do they put you in jail? I mean, yeah, your territory would be poor as dirt, but they let you live, right?”

Kurt didn’t look at Sebastian. He didn’t answer him.

But Kurt’s non-answer _was_ an answer, and Sebastian wanted to throw up.

“Hard labor for the rest of your life?” Sebastian pleaded, grasping for the worst punishment he could think of as a way out of the fate he so proudly trapped himself into. “They cut off a finger? A limb? What, Kurt? What happens to you?”

Kurt looked at Sebastian, his melancholy turning into pity.

“Losing all five times is the ultimate disgrace,” Kurt said. “After five times, they raze your territory to the ground … and sentence you and your whole family to death.”

 

 


	129. Just an Echo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the Kurtbastian Hiatus Project prompt first ‘I love you’.

Kurt looks inside his messenger bag, making sure he has everything he needs for the journey home.

“Wallet, keys, bus ticket…”

 _Ugh_. He didn’t want to resort to taking the bus, but he missed the train by minutes, and there wouldn’t be another one to Ohio from New York till the morning. Besides, riding the Greyhound Bus seems like an artistically appropriate way to leave a relationship.

Late at night, seedy bus terminal, all sorts of salt-of-the-earth types roaming around with their own tragic backstories, staring vacantly ahead while they wait for the bus that will take them home, take them away from an abusive relationship, take them to God only knows where.

It’s almost like a retro music video remake of Journey’s _Don’t Stop Believing_.

Kurt can definitely appreciate the drama of it.

Kurt double checks his bus ticket , reading all the fine print over to make sure (for the 80th time) that he’s going to the right place, when he hears the odious squeal of Pirelli tires blowing through the red light and screeching into the bus station parking lot.

Kurt rolls his eyes.

_Speaking of drama…_

How did Sebastian figure out that he would be at a bus station, of all places? Though how the hell Sebastian found him is a little less impressive to Kurt at the moment than the fact that Kurt can pinpoint the telltale sound of Sebastian’s Mustang peeling onto the pavement over anyone else’s car.

Kurt used to think that was a sure sign that they were meant to be together – the romantic cliché _of I would know the sound of your heart beating over anyone’s. I would know that you were there, even in the dark._

Those ideologies used to be Kurt’s raison d’etre.

Now he knows they are just pathetic excuses he made to justify keeping them together - for staying with a conceited, asshole prick who can’t even admit that he loves Kurt.

Maybe that’s because he never really did.

Kurt keeps his single piece of Louis Vuitton luggage close, trying to blend in with the late night rabble, though it’s kind of hard for a man in a vintage grey Vivienne Westwood suit to hide in a line of people that consists of three emo teenagers dressed entirely in black, an elderly man in a 1960s era goldenrod flannel shirt and faded blue jeans, and a pregnant Puerto Rican lady with a toddler girl clinging to her leg, yawning and hiding behind her.

 _Maybe if I stand perfectly still, he’ll walk right by me,_ Kurt thinks, keeping his head bowed over his ticket and focusing on his shoes.

_When did I get that scuff on the toe? I didn’t see…_

“Kurt!?”

It’s not just a call or a cry.

It’s an honest to God bellow.

Cross traffic stops.

People turn and look.

Somewhere in the distance, a lonely dog barks.

Kurt wants to sink into the asphalt and die.

“Kurt!?” the yelling of his name continues. “Kurt!? Where the fuck are you, Kurt!?”

 _Ah, he’s a modern day Romeo,_ Kurt thinks with a giggle, _and this is our balcony scene_.

“Kurt!”

Kurt hears the _Eureka! I found him!_ tone in Sebastian’s voice, and he knows he’s been discovered.

“Kurt! Thank God I found you!” Sebastian’s standing right in front him, but Kurt chooses to ignore him, re-reading the words on his ticket over and over.

It’s a coping mechanism, one he’s had to resort to before when bullies used to pick on him in high school.

Focus on something unimportant.

Empty your mind and disappear.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Sebastian continues with no encouragement from Kurt. He stares at his stoic boyfriend and shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter. I found you, and that’s all that matters. Now, let me get this suitcase so we can go home and talk.”

“Unless you’re asking for my forwarding address, we have nothing to talk about,” Kurt says without looking up from his ticket.

“What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?” Sebastian sputters, apparently unaware that there are other people in the world, and that they have all begun to stare for lack of anything better to do.

“It means I’m leaving you,” Kurt says, finally looking up, focusing on the bus driver checking tickets and getting everyone ready to board.

“What?” Sebastian asks, wide-eyed with a cartoon look of shock.

Kurt leans forward, almost close enough to kiss his boyfriend, but he won’t give him the satisfaction of a good-bye kiss.

“I’m…leeaavviinngg…yooouuu,” Kurt drawls, voice dripping with condescension. He stands back straight and hands the bus driver his ticket, pointedly ignoring Sebastian again.

“I…heeeeaaaarrrrdddd…yyyyoooouuuu,” Sebastian drawls obnoxiously back. One member of the emo group snickers. Kurt glares at them. Emo girl catches his bitch glare and sticks out her tongue, while the members of her entourage laugh.

Kurt shakes his head.

 _Fucking Twilight vampire wannabes_.

Kurt is too distracted to notice Sebastian picking up his suitcase, but when he feels it brush against his leg, he reaches down and grabs it quickly, moving it to the opposite side of his body and away from Sebastian’s grasp.

“Oh, come on, Kurt,” Sebastian groans. “Be reasonable.”

“Why?” Kurt asks with a bitter laugh. “Why do _I_ always have to be reasonable? When we argue about something _you_ care about, _you_ end up winning. When it’s something _I_ care about, we compromise. _Be reasonable, Kurt. Meet me half way, Kurt._ But in the end it’s still _you_ winning. Well, I’m tired of being a loser, Sebastian!”

The line of people picks up their things and starts to move. Kurt grabs the handle of his bag and picks it up, but Sebastian reaches over him in another attempt to take it.

“Come on, babe,” Sebastian says. “It’s not _that_ bad.”

 _Babe_ , Kurt thinks, even his inner voice sounding spiteful. _He’s bringing out the **big** guns now_.

“Of course, you would think that,” Kurt says, wrenching his suitcase free again, “you always win.”

“What did I win?” Sebastian asks, chuckling with the frustration of feeling kept in the dark. “What super important point did I argue my way out of? What compromise of ours screwed you over?”

Kurt stares at his boyfriend with one eyebrow raised.

Sebastian catches on immediately.

“Are we still talking about that?” Sebastian throws his head back and moans dramatically into the open air.

“Yes, we’re still talking about _that_ ,” Kurt tosses back in his face.

“Come on, Kurt,” Sebastian pleads. “I already told you I do.”

“No!” Kurt jumps on his boyfriend’s comment quickly. “No, you don’t say it. I say it, and then you say something lame and pithy like _me to you, too_ or _ditto_. I say _I love you_ , and you’re just an echo. I’m not looking for an echo, Sebastian. I’m looking for _I love you_.”

“Sir?” the bus driver says, reaching out to tap Kurt on the shoulder, but then dropping his hand back to his side when he decides it’s safer not to risk it. “Sir, we’re just about to board, so if you want to put your luggage…”

Kurt snaps his head to address the burly man interrupting his rant, and then looks over to where he’s pointing – to the exposed bowel of the bus where other people are stacking their bags willy-nilly in the filthy looking cargo bay. Kurt grimaces at the thought of shoving his Louis Vuitton bag in that hold with all those other suitcases and bags. Some of them aren’t even bags – some of them are oversized Tupperware containers or cardboard boxes wrapped in bungees cords, cracking along the corners or ripping at the seams, threatening to spill their bargain-basement contents everywhere.

 _Ugh_.

It’s almost worth going back with Sebastian - returning to his penthouse and a loveless relationship - to avoid sacrificing his $1300 piece of rolling luggage to the depths of baggage hell.

“Come on, Kurt,” Sebastian says, softening his tone and shelving the drama, “you know you don’t want to do this.”

“How do you know…” Kurt starts, but Sebastian stops him with an arm around his waist.

Kurt crosses his arms across his chest, making himself rigid and unyielding in Sebastian’s arm.

“I know you’re angry at me, baby,” Sebastian whispers, “and I know what to do to make it all better.”

Sebastian runs his hand up and down Kurt’s back, gently running his fingertips along the ridges of his spine.

“I’m not having sex with you,” Kurt demands, holding his ground.

Sebastian smiles.

“I’m not talking about that,” he says, reaching into his pocket with his free hand and pulling out and folded piece of paper. “I wrote you a note.” Sebastian leans in, speaking against Kurt’s lips, trying to get Kurt to cave.

Kurt tries to appear unimpressed, but he’s also intrigued.

“A note?” Kurt repeats. “Like a love letter?”

“Well, you’ll have to open it up and see,” Sebastian says, tempting Kurt with his breath ghosting over his skin.

Kurt takes the folded note in his hands and opens it, eager to see what it says.

It’s a simple note, just three words, but then again, Sebastian is a simple man at heart. Showy and flowery displays of affection aren’t necessarily his thing.

But it doesn’t have to be flowery. It doesn’t necessarily have to be eloquent, either, as long as it says what Kurt hopes it says.

Those three words they’d been fighting over for the last year of their three year relationship.

He reads the note over once, his eyes lighting up in the dark, his mind jumping to conclusions, all the while realizing there is something a little off about the words on the paper. It looks like Sebastian wrote it while driving but other than that, when he reads it again, its message is blaringly clear.

“You _loathe_ me!” Kurt pushes Sebastian hard on the chest, breaking free of his embrace. He crumples up the paper and tosses it, hitting Sebastian square in the face. “You son of a bitch!”

“No!” Sebastian says with a ridiculous look of surprise. “I didn’t…” Sebastian opens up the crumpled page and reads it. “Damn, my handwriting sucks.”

“Yeah, well, you can say that again,” Kurt says. “Actually, say it to my back as I get on this bus.”

Kurt hastily stows his luggage in the compartment beneath the bus and hands his ticket to the bus driver. He refuses to turn around. He refuses to let Sebastian’s eyes lure him back to his Mustang and his penthouse with no promises other than the day to day they’ve been living for the past three years with no hope of a future.

Kurt’s tired of being stagnant.

He’s going back to Ohio. He’s going to take a few days to clear his head and then figure out his game plan from there.

And this time, there’s not a thing that Sebastian can do or say to stop him.

“I love you.”

Kurt’s foot hovers over the first step onto the bus – the first step to moving on. He doesn’t chance a glance over at his soon-to-be ex-boyfriend.

He’s pretty sure that like everything else, he’s misunderstood.

“What?” Kurt asks, just in case.

“I said…” Sebastian takes a step forward, his arms open wide in front of him, “I love you.”

A communal _awww_ rises from the voices of people staring at them through the open bus windows, people who have been sitting around, annoyed at first by the delay, but becoming more and more invested as time goes on.

“Now, are you just saying that to keep me from leaving?” Kurt asks, not removing his foot from the step, “or do you really mean it?”

“I mean it,” Sebastian admits, taking another step, “I do. And I’m sorry I didn’t say it before, but I was just trying to find the right time…a romantic place…” Sebastian looks around at the dingy bus station, at the exhausted faces staring at them like they’re performing dinner theater, “but I guess that this is as good a place as any.”

“Yeah,” Kurt admits, still sounding bitter, “in fact, any time and any place would have been fine.”

“I know that now,” Sebastian says, “but at the time, I wanted everything to be perfect.”

“And what time was that, exactly?” Kurt asks, tapping the toe of his shoe on the stair.

“About a year ago,” Sebastian confesses, his eyes darting left and right, sheepishly waiting for the backlash. The onlookers gasp and Kurt scoffs, his mouth dropping open wide.

“A year?” Kurt screeches. “Do you know what I’ve been going through for the past year? The waiting? The self-doubt? The wrinkles?”

Sebastian keeps stepping forward, and then he chuckles.

“What wrinkles?” he says with a fondly patronizing tone. “You don’t have a wrinkle anywhere.”

“Well, I thought I saw one…” Kurt mumbles as Sebastian wraps him up in his arms and pulls him away from the bus, “in the corner of my right eye.”

“You mean, here?” Sebastian whispers, pressing his lips to the sensitive skin at the corner of Kurt’s eye. “Because I don’t see anything.”

“Well, maybe it was the other eye,” Kurt continues breathlessly. Sebastian’s lips travel across the bridge of Kurt’s nose to the same spot at the corner of the opposite eye.

“Here?” he murmurs. “Never. Not a wrinkle in sight.”

“That still doesn’t mean that I…”

“I love you, Kurt.” Sebastian cuts Kurt’s rambling short with another kiss, breathing him in as licks across the seam of his mouth. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

“Are you going to just keep repeating yourself?” Kurt smiles wider than he has in a long while. “Because, that could get annoying, you know.”

“Well, I have a lot of fucked up time to make up for,” Sebastian admits.

“Maybe you should toss in a few _I’m sorrys_ for good measure then,” Kurt says, kissing Sebastian back.

“Don’t push your luck, Hummel.” Sebastian pulls Kurt close, squeezing him hard, dipping him slowly back as he kisses him again.

Kurt is lost in this kiss, but unfortunately not lost enough that he can ignore the giggles and sighs of people he conveniently forgot were probably watching them throughout this entire ordeal. Still, he waits until Sebastian pulls away before he acknowledges the eyes focused on them.

“So, what do you think, guys?” Kurt says to the faces staring down at them from the windows. “Should I take him back?”

A roar of cheering and laughter rises up from the bus windows, where a crowd of passengers stare at them with different expressions of hope and joy for the battling couple.

“So, I take it you’re…” the bus driver asks.

“I’m staying,” Kurt says, capturing Sebastian’s lips for another kiss.

The bus driver shakes his head, smiling to himself. They say if you want to find romance, you don’t go to the movies or buy a book. You go to the airport, or train stations, or bus terminals. You got to hospital waiting rooms. You find all those places where people gather every day with their loved ones to say hello and good-bye.

This is a story he’ll need to share with his wife when he gets home, the bus driver thinks, climbing into his seat, shutting the sliding doors, and firing the engine.

The passengers applaud as the bus pulls away, leaving Kurt and Sebastian to make-up in private.

“Fuck,” Kurt sighs, breaking the kiss.

“I know, right?” Sebastian murmurs seductively with a nibble to Kurt’s lower lip.

“No,” Kurt says, more urgently, “fuck! As in, the bus is leaving!”

Sebastian stands up straight, staring at Kurt with his mouth open, both offended and confused.

“But…” Sebastian stammers, “but I thought saying I love you…”

“It does, you idiot!” Kurt yells, smacking him on the arm. “But, my bag!”

“Uhhh!” Sebastian groans. “Let it go! I’ll buy you another one.”

“Sebastian!” Kurt squeals, batting Sebastian away. “My sketchbook’s in there! It’s irreplaceable! And my computer! All my credit cards!”

“Alright!” Sebastian grabs Kurt’s hand and runs for his Mustang. “We’ll have to follow it to the next stop. Get your ass in the car.” Sebastian pulls out his fob and unlocks the door so Kurt can jump inside.

“Thank you for this,” Kurt says, sounding deeply apologetic.

“Shut it,” Sebastian says, sliding into the driver’s seat. ”You’re just lucky I love you.”


	130. Leaving My Old Self Behind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this for the Kurtbastian Hiatus Project prompt ‘first time’. Dalton AU, angst, underage, warning for revenge sex, and mention of Blaine but not Klaine.

Kurt looks over his shoulder one last time to make sure no one sees him before he heads down the staircase. Of course, if anyone _had_ seen him, they’d know exactly where he’s headed and why. This particular enclosed staircase only leads to one place in Dalton and that’s the boiler room.

The only reason why a student would go down to the boiler room during fifth period study hall (when the maintenance man goes to lunch) is to see _him_.

Sebastian Smythe.

The janitor’s closet in the boiler room is Sebastian’s favorite hangout for anyone interested in a mid-afternoon lay. Kurt rolls his eyes as he imagines clamoring around in a filthy closet with Sebastian Smythe, but the thought isn’t repulsive enough to make him turn around and go back to the library. Kurt is on a mission. For the past week-and-a-half, there is something he’s been eager to get rid of, and this seems like the easiest (though not necessarily the most dignified) way to do it.

Though considering how Kurt had made such an epic fool of himself – pining after Blaine, thinking that Blaine really wanted to be with him, that he was just waiting for the right time to ask Kurt out, that all their flirty duets and coffee dates and late night phone conversations actually meant something, just to watch Blaine sing for and win the heart of another boy - dignity had absolutely nothing to do with it.

It serves him right, being such a hopeless romantic and believing in his heart of hearts that all of those things – all of those apparently platonic, shallow things – were signs of a deeper romance.

There was, however, one conversation that wasn’t shallow, and didn’t seem all that platonic.

The _just-between-friends-what-do-you-imagine-your-first-time-will-be-like_ conversation.

Blaine had started it, but Kurt had finished it, and every word of it was about Blaine.

That was the day before Blaine asked Jeremiah to be his boyfriend, and in front of a crowded GAP store full of witnesses, Jeremiah said yes.

Every sentence out of Blaine’s mouth for days after that started with _Jeremiah said_ and _Jeremiah did_.

It all started to sound the same to Kurt – _Jeremiah blah, blah, blah_.

A few days later, Jeremiah dropped Blaine back at the dorms later than usual after a date to the movies. Blaine walked in with messed up hair, a goofy smile, and a hard to hide limp. Kurt saw him, wrecked but gloriously happy, and he knew. That’s when this admittedly stupid plan was born.

Kurt realized after he saw Blaine that night that he put too much store into romance. After all, it's a dated, old-fashioned concept. Besides himself, are there any other true romantics in the world? Kurt highly doubts it. It could be argued that singing to someone at their work might be considered the height of romance, but to be fair, Blaine had chosen a fairly raunchy song, which most likely explained his willingness to give it up so early in his new relationship.

Kurt stops halfway down the staircase. His heart starts stuttering uncomfortably and he takes a deep breath before he can continue. The air smells like ammonia and CK cologne; the combination of sharp and sickeningly sweet makes his heart stutter more, with the addition of causing his head to swim. The walls shift and then settle back into place when he blinks his eyes.

Kurt reminds himself that he had planned on this, convinced himself that he wanted it – that it was for the best – but the anticipation turned this day into a nightmare. He couldn’t concentrate on school. He couldn’t take notes. He might have even gotten a rare B on a French test. He spent the day envisioning every moment of going down to the boiler room – walking down the smooth marble steps, the light growing darker as he descends, the temperature rising all around. But in his mind, Sebastian waited for him in the janitor’s closet. He doesn’t expect him to be leaning against the door jamb, arms crossed over his chest, one ankle hooked over the other, keeping watch for him.

“Well, well, well,” Sebastian says with a seedy grin, “Kurt Hummel.” He shakes his head in disbelief as Kurt approaches.  Sebastian looks far too pleased to see him. “You know, I thought for sure that text was a prank.”

“Then way did you bother showing up?” Kurt asks, more nervous than he wants to feel.

“Because I was _really_ hoping it would be you.” Sebastian pushes off the wall when Kurt stops in front of him. He looks Kurt up and down, still shaking his head.

“And why is that?” Kurt continues. He might be stalling, not because he’s having second thoughts about going through with this, but he needs time for the frantic fluttering in his stomach to stop first.

“Because I’m working my way through the senior class,” Sebastian says, “and you were definitely the ass I thought I would have to work the hardest to get.”

“Well, here I am,” Kurt says, pulling himself up straight, “so can we please go inside and get this over with?”

“Get _what_ over with, exactly?” Sebastian steps closer, enjoying Kurt’s obvious discomfort.

Kurt steps back, letting out a long breath of aggravation.

“You know _what_ , Sebastian.”

“I just want to hear you say it,” Sebastian says, his hand hovering over the door handle.

“Why do you need me to say it?” Kurt grinds through clenched teeth, the volume of his voice rising with Sebastian’s taunts.

“Because, I know you haven’t done this before,” Sebastian admits, his voice taking on a softer, more compassionate quality, “and I’m just a little curious as to why now…and why me.”

“Tim in my Calculus class said that you would,” Kurt says, his voice threatening to break. “He said you did it for him. He said you get off on it.”

“And I do,” Sebastian says, his normal smug tone making a welcome return.

Smug, conceited, cocky Sebastian, Kurt can deal with.

Curious, considerate, and possibly concerned Sebastian, Kurt wants nothing to do with.

He can’t get through this unless he can dehumanize Sebastian in his head as much as possible.

He’s not a person right now.

He’s a means to an end.

But Sebastian isn’t through with Kurt yet.

“But I thought you were one of those sappy romantic types,” Sebastian presses, “waiting for the right guy, the right moment, the right coordinating outfit.”

Kurt shrugs in his best attempt to look nonchalant while Sebastian’s words worm their way into his not-entirely hardened heart.

“Maybe I was,” he says.

“So, why would you want to throw away your V-card like this?”

“That’s none of your concern,” Kurt replies, tapping his toe in a show of his frustration.

It doesn’t faze Sebastian – not his tapping toe, his defensive stance, or his steely glare. Sebastian stares at Kurt, not making any move to open the door to the closet.

“Does this have anything to do with Blaine and…”

“Look, are we going to do this or not?” Kurt snaps, reaching a breaking point at the mention of Blaine’s name. “Because if you’re not going to do this, I’m sure I can find somebody else.”

“Alright, alright, alright,” Sebastian says. “Sheesh. Don’t blow a gasket.”

Sebastian couldn't care less. He’s done this dozens of times. So, maybe he doesn’t entirely understand why the thought of taking Kurt’s virginity doesn’t sit well with him, but the idea of someone else taking it, of someone else possibly hurting him, wrings Sebastian’s stomach. He turns the doorknob and pushes the heavy door open. He doesn’t say a word, only gestures to the room, and Kurt hurries inside.

The closet is just as horrific as Kurt had imagined. The air around them is disturbingly wet and smells like old sweat socks and mold, but it will have to do.

Beggars can’t be choosers.

Kurt watches Sebastian lock the door, and then set to work moving aside buckets and mops and other cleaning implements that might get in the way.

“And why don’t you do this in your bedroom again?” Kurt asks, using his bitchiness to hide the shaking in his voice.

“I don’t like my room reeking of desperation,” Sebastian sneers. “It’s a clingy smell…hard to get rid of.”

“Can’t you just drown it out with CK?” Kurt asks. “You obviously bathe in the stuff. I could smell it all the way down the stairs.”

Sebastian doesn’t bother defending his choice of scents. He comes up to Kurt, puts an arm around his waist, and leans in close, ready to kiss him. Kurt puts his hands up to Sebastian’s chest and holds him off, pushing him back.

“What are you doing?” Kurt asks, completely appalled.

“Uh, I’m trying to kiss you,” Sebastian says with an amused chuckle.

“Why?” Kurt leans back when all of his attempts to push Sebastian away doesn’t move him. “Why do we need to kiss?”

“Because, that’s how you traditionally start having sex,” Sebastian explains, teasing but not cruelly.

Kurt can’t help his eyes flicking down to Sebastian’s lips as they zero in on his. It’s so tempting to kiss him. Kurt can imagine that a boy with as much practice at the art of kissing as Sebastian must have, has to be an incredible kisser, but Kurt hasn’t done that yet, either, and for some reason, it seems like more of a tragedy throwing _that_ first away than this one.

Kurt needs to remember his objective. He wants sex, not intimacy. Kissing equals intimacy, therefore…

“No,” Kurt says, “no, I don’t want to do that.”

Sebastian pulls away, looking vaguely disappointed.

“Then, what do you want to do, princess?” he asks, the smile on his face looking exceptionally forced.

“I just want to…you know,” Kurt says again, making indecipherable gestures with his hands.

Sebastian watches him struggle, loving his embarrassment and his fumbling almost as much as the promise of getting a chance to have him – even though they’re not exactly off to the best start.

“You know, if you can’t _say_ the word sex, you’re probably not ready to have it,” Sebastian says with a laugh.

It’s the laugh that cracks Kurt. He was prepared to put up with the jokes and the teasing, but being outright laughed at is different.

“I want to have sex with you,” Kurt says, his face turning beet red, “is that what you need to hear? Or would you rather I told you I want you to fuck me? Either way, I want your dick up my ass, and I would appreciate it if we got this over with because I’m having dinner with my dad later and I don’t need _you_ as an excuse for being late!”

Sebastian stares, his smile gone, any other joke he had planned on making wiped from his memory. Kurt doesn’t wait for Sebastian to make the next move. He pulls off his blazer and places it carefully aside, and then starts on the buckle to his belt. Sebastian watches closely. Kurt’s hands shake as he undoes the belt, and he curses as the metal tongue clanks loudly against the frame.

“Just relax,” Sebastian says. He wants to help Kurt with his buckle, but every time he takes a step forward, Kurt takes a step away, so Sebastian stops and starts to take off his own blazer and undo his own pants. “You know, if you keep backing away, we’re never going to do this.” Kurt’s head snaps up at Sebastian’s words, sees him undressing, and he finally gets the belt undone. “Like it or not, I’m going to have to touch you.”

“I know that.” Kurt stops with the belt unbuckled and waits for Sebastian to catch up. “I just…I’m not looking for romance, or kissing, or…”

“Yeah, I know,” Sebastian says. “I get it, but don’t you even want to enjoy it?”

Kurt thinks only a second and then shakes his head. He doesn’t need to lie to Sebastian. He doesn’t care enough to lie.

“It’s not necessary,” Kurt admits.

Sebastian opens his mouth to speak, but Kurt cuts him off.

“Look, before you start getting all fucking philosophical or whatnot, can we fuck first and talk later?”

Kurt turns toward the wall, bracing himself against it with his hands, and spreads his legs.

Sebastian rolls his eyes, but bites back his laugh.

“I’m not going to strip search you, Hummel. And are you sure you wouldn’t be more comfortable on the floor? I brought a blanket just for the occasion.”

Kurt looks over his shoulder at Sebastian, and then throws a look down at the hard, cold floor.

“Uh, a world of _no,”_ Kurt says, turning back to the wall.

Kurt doesn’t turn back around. He didn’t expect this. The interrogation is making him lose his nerve. He curls his hands into fists and waits. He hears Sebastian sigh.

“You know, could you compromise a little bit on something so I don’t feel like I’m fucking a hole in the wall?” Sebastian asks.

“Like…like what?” Kurt stammers. Kurt doesn’t see why this is so hard for Sebastian. He figures that all Sebastian needs from Kurt is to be breathing and have a pulse.

“Like let me undress you,” Sebastian whispers, reaching around Kurt and grabbing his pants, pulling them slowly down his legs.

“Um…okay,” Kurt relents, stepping out of his slacks when he feels them reach his ankles. Sebastian runs his fingers up the inside of Kurt’s legs when he stands, and despite his indifference to Sebastian and this entire situation, Kurt shivers. Kurt doesn’t watch Sebastian set his pants aside; he simply hopes that Sebastian has the sense to lay them out where they won’t get too wrinkled. Kurt doesn’t need anyone jumping to conclusions when they see him in wrinkled clothing, even if those conclusions are correct.

He feels Sebastian’s hands move to his shirt, undoing the buttons, starting from his collar and traveling down the length of his torso. Sebastian’s fingertips brush his skin lightly as his fingers move, and Kurt closes his eyes, letting himself enjoy, for a moment, being undressed for the first time by another boy. This little detail, this insignificant moment, becomes a bigger thing in Kurt’s head, the start of something emotional, and he forces his eyes back open to be rid of it.

No intimacy.

No emotion.

Means to an end.

Sebastian slips the shirt from Kurt’s shoulders and whisks it away, Kurt assumes, to wherever his pants have gone.

There Kurt stands, in his underwear and socks, ready for who-knows-what. It hasn’t escaped his attention that he has essentially given Sebastian all of the power here – Sebastian chose the spot, Sebastian has Kurt’s clothes, Sebastian’s fucking him. There is a lot more trust wrapped up in this venture than Kurt had counted on.

“Okay,” Kurt says, dispelling that thought, “you’ve undressed me.”

“Not entirely.” Sebastian slides a finger beneath the waistband of Kurt’s underwear and tugs.

“No,” Kurt says, uneasily.

“I don’t know what kinky pornos you’ve been watching, but my cock ain’t going in your ass unless these come off.”

“Well, not completely,” Kurt demands, “just down to my knees.”

“Fine,” Sebastian groans. “You know, you are the most uptight bitch I’ve ever fucked.”

“Well, you’re not fucking me yet,” Kurt gripes, “and that’s part of the problem.”

Sebastian pulls down Kurt’s boxer briefs, negotiating his surprisingly hard cock.

That is something Kurt hadn’t expected, either.

He didn’t think he could get aroused in a janitor’s closet, or in the presence of Sebastian Smythe. He hadn’t cared about that. It wasn’t necessary, either.

Kurt feels Sebastian’s lips close to his skin, skimming over his shoulders and neck, and decides that as long as Sebastian doesn’t try to kiss him on the lips, everywhere else is fair game.

Whatever Sebastian needs to get in the mood.

He hears what sounds like the snap of a flip-top lid, and an obscene squelching noise. Then a single finger presses its way between the crack of his ass.

“Whoa, wait, wait, wait,” Kurt cries, turning around and grabbing Sebastian’s hand. “What are you doing?”

“I’m fingering you,” Sebastian says, trying to shake Kurt’s hand away.

“I don’t…no,” Kurt objects, “just…no. Eww.”

“Kurt, it’s okay,” Sebastian says, his voice attempting to smooth out the edges, “I actually quite enjoy it.”

“But, I…no.” Kurt pants. The thought of Sebastian fingering him is actually exciting, but he can’t let him. Kurt falls so easily for the wrong people. He can’t let this one experience soften him. “Please, just…”

“I need to open you up a bit first, babe…” Sebastian keeps his fingers poised at Kurt’s entrance, “or else it’s really going to hurt.”

“I…I don’t care if it hurts,” Kurt admits. “I just want you to get it over with.”

Sebastian can hear the meek, scared boy past the bravado. It’s something that Sebastian doesn’t like to hear - not from Kurt, the Ice Queen. Not from Kurt, who’ll go toe to toe with him any day of the week. Not from Kurt, the strongest boy he knows, even if he’s never told him.

There are a lot of things Sebastian hasn’t told Kurt, but now is not the time.

Sebastian leaves Kurt for a moment to hunt down a condom, and he slips it on.

The rest is unremarkable.

Sebastian slathers his erection in as much lube as he can, nearly the entire bottle. As methodically as possible, he tries to enter Kurt without hurting him. He moves slowly, every inch forward bringing a hiss from Kurt’s lips, and Sebastian bites down on his lip to keep from berating Kurt for his stupidity, for not letting him open him up slowly, for not letting him do this his way.

Kurt is anxious, his heart unable to decide between slamming to a stop every time Sebastian moves, or running itself to exhaustion.

It hurts, just like Sebastian warned him it would. Every infinitesimal stretch burns. He feels like his body is being torn in two. It doesn’t help that Kurt can’t relax. He can’t visualize anything that will soothe the sting. There’s nothing that will make this easier and Sebastian sounds like he’s about to give up.

Sebastian manages to slip the head of his cock past the nearly impenetrable ring of muscle at Kurt’s entrance, and Kurt cries out in pain.

“You know,” Sebastian says, his own voice beginning to shake as he fights to not move any further, “that probably counts as losing your virginity, I think.” It’s lame, but it’s the best he can come up with considering the position he’s in. Kurt is tight – so tight that it’s almost painful for Sebastian, too. Sebastian remembers what his first time was like – sloppy and awkward and painful…so very painful.

He can definitely relate.

He doesn’t want that for Kurt, but he doesn’t get the chance to decide.

Kurt bites his lip – bites it hard. He digs his nails into his palms. He fills his body with as many distracting sensations as he can and then slams his body backward.

The scream that tears from his throat isn’t intentional. The intense stab of pain that fills his body is unbearable. It’s the agony of his body being pulled apart. If he could slip away to the cold floor and roll into a ball, he would. His knees buckle, and he feels himself slide forward.

Sebastian’s arm catches him.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck! Kurt!” Sebastian scolds. “Why the fuck…you know, you could hurt something doing that!”

“D-don’t worry a-about me,” Kurt stutters, choking on tears, struggling to get his knees to hold him up again, eliminating the need for Sebastian’s arm to keep him steady.

“I’m talking about me, God dammit!” Sebastian groans, but it’s mostly a lie. It hurt. It definitely hurt, but memories of what it must have been like for Kurt flood his brain. He can feel Kurt’s abs clenching, his legs wobbling, his strength failing to return to his jelly-like limbs.

“Well,” Kurt says, his eyes squeezed shut, “I wouldn’t have had to do that if you would just move.”

“Kurt…” Sebastian wants to argue; he wants to make Kurt reconsider.

Kurt’s not here to lose his virginity. He’s there to torture himself, and for what?

Because Blaine is an ass?

Because Kurt was naïve?

Because he fell in love with the wrong person?

All of those can make someone feel like shit, but none of them are worth physical injury.

“What are you doing, Kurt?” Sebastian whispers. “Why are you doing this?”

“It’s…it’s none of your business,” Kurt says, crawling back up the wall, finding his footing again.

“None of my business?” Sebastian laughs. “I’m balls deep in your ass, and it’s none of my business?”

“That’s right, Smythe,” Kurt mutters, standing in roughly the same place as before. “It’s none of your business.”

“Fine, Kurt!” Sebastian says, grabbing Kurt’s hips before he can move again. “Be that way, but can you please let me…”

“Move,” Kurt grumbles, bucking back with his hips and growling when Sebastian keeps his body locked against him.

“Kurt…”

“I said _move_!”

Sebastian doesn’t say another word. There’s no reasoning with Kurt. Of course, he can pull out and leave Kurt here to deal with his pain alone, but he wouldn’t do that. He’s wanted Kurt for a while and this is probably the only chance he’s going to get.

Besides, now that the throb of having his cock painfully squeezed has subsided, Kurt feels too good to pass up.

Sebastian moves, and Kurt whimpers, but Sebastian ignores him.

He asked for this.

He wants it.

He moves in and out slowly, more gently than he might usually be, but he knows it still hurts.

Sebastian bites his lip and closes his eyes, tilting his head up to the ceiling.

This isn’t what he wanted with Kurt. This isn’t what he wanted at all.

When he heard about Blaine and his new man-meat, Sebastian thought he might actually have a chance.

Then when he got the text from Kurt, he let himself hope that Kurt wanted something different than revenge sex. Kurt Hummel is the epitome of romance. He wouldn’t just call Sebastian for a quick fuck in the boiler room, like everyone else.

Why did he even let himself believe that?

Sebastian reaches around Kurt’s body and grabs his cock, surprised that Kurt lets him. He moves his hand over it as quickly as he can, hoping to get this over with.

Kurt bites his lip raw. Sebastian fucking him hurts for a long time, and when it stops hurting, it’s just plain uncomfortable. Sebastian grabs his cock, and his whole body cries out for relief. He feels Sebastian’s hand start to falter, his hips begin to stutter, and all he can really bring himself to think is _Thank God_.

When he cums, it’s no big deal – it’s not fireworks and stars exploding behind his eyes. It’s just done. A physical reaction of his body to stimuli.

It’s over.

And just like that, his virginity is gone.

As soon as he finishes cumming, Sebastian pulls out carefully. He doesn’t ask Kurt how it was.

He already knows.

Kurt’s legs wobble, his knees knock together, weak from keeping himself upright, contorting through the pain.

Sebastian keeps an arm around Kurt’s stomach, trying to help, but Kurt grabs at his wrist and pushes him away. Sebastian steps back, putting on his clothes to avoid looking at Kurt, who is still bent double near the wall. By the time Sebastian finishes doing up his slacks, Kurt pulls up his boxer briefs. Sebastian grabs Kurt’s clothes and holds them out to him. When Kurt takes them and turns away to dress, Sebastian leaves the closet and stands outside the door, giving Kurt privacy.

The bell for sixth period rings and Sebastian hears Kurt rushing to hurry up. The doorknob turns, the door swings open, and Kurt walks out. Sebastian watches him try to take a step. His knee buckles but he catches himself. He takes another step, and then another. He brushes by Sebastian without acknowledging that he’s there - that he’s been there waiting - and heads for the stairs.

“So, that’s it?” Sebastian asks, surprised at how bitter he is about the whole thing. “Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am, and you’re out the door?”

“What do you want from me?” Kurt hisses, his hand plastered to the wall to keep from sliding to the floor.

“I don’t know,” Sebastian says, walking slowly toward Kurt, “maybe a thank you?”

Kurt sighs.

“Thank you,” he says. “Thank you for helping me get rid of the last thing that I cared about. Now I don’t need to care anymore.”

Kurt shoots up the steps, taking them two at a time, pushing past the pain and making it to the hallway above before Sebastian has a chance to follow.

“Fuck!” Sebastian barks, smacking his fist against the wall. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!”

***

Kurt is a zombie for the next three days.

His ass hurts.

His legs hurt.

His head hurts.

His heart hurts.

But at least losing his virginity seems to have helped him build up a wall. It’s made him different - not stronger, per se, but more resilient. Now when he hears Blaine talk about Jeremiah with that saccharin-laced singsong voice of his, looking off dreamily with his moony hazel eyes, Kurt has a shield to hide behind.

He has no vulnerability left.

Sebastian took the last piece.

Took it, and disappeared, it seems.

Kurt and Sebastian have two classes together – French and English – and he still shows up there, of course, but he walks straight to the last row of chairs and tables and sits quietly where before he was always sending little obnoxious notes Kurt’s way (mostly made up of X-rated doodles and racy limericks).

Kurt found it annoying before, but now he misses them.

He doesn’t see Sebastian during lunch.

He doesn’t see him walking down the hall.

At Warbler practice, Sebastian stays as far away from Kurt as humanly possible without resorting to jumping out a window.

It shouldn’t bother Kurt. In fact, Sebastian keeping his distance should make getting past this easier.

But it does bother him, not because they had sex together.

Frankly, that part he wouldn’t mind forgetting, but because of all the other things – the concern in Sebastian’s voice, the fingertips on his skin, the arm around his waist that kept him standing even when his knees refused to help. Does he do that for everyone he fucks?

His rational brain says yes, but his heart says probably not, and it makes Kurt feel better to listen to his heart.

Two weeks go by before Sebastian comes out of the woodwork and talks to Kurt again.

Sebastian finds him having a coffee in the senior commons on Saturday night, after most of the boys have gone home, or to the movies, or in Blaine’s case, out on a weekend camping trip with his new boyfriend.

Kurt’s ass may have stopped hurting a while ago, but Blaine and Jeremiah – that still stings.

Sebastian drops down into a chair at his table and stares at Kurt in the most bothersome way possible.

“Are you lost?” Kurt asks with his eyes glued out the window.

“Nope,” Sebastian says and continues to stare.

Kurt sighs.

“I only ask because you seem to make it a point not to have anything to do with me, and here you are sitting at my table. So either you’re lost, or you’ve mistaken me for someone else.”

“Nope,” he says again, “and I wasn’t avoiding you. I was giving you some space.”

Kurt laughs.

“If that’s what you call it.” Kurt sighs and stands, preparing to retire to his room.

Sebastian stands, too, and grabs Kurt’s hand.

“Come on, Kurt,” Sebastian says, dragging him down the hall. “I need to show you something.”

“What? Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.”

They pass by Kurt’s room and further down the hall to a stairway that leads to the dorms a floor above. Sebastian pulls him halfway down the hall and stops at a door identical to his own. In fact, the room might be right above his. He’s not sure.

“Is this…your room?” Kurt asks.

“Yup.”

Kurt tilts his head while he watches Sebastian stick his key in the lock.

“I thought you didn’t bring guys to your room. I thought you didn’t like your room smelling like desperation.”

Sebastian shrugs.

“For you, I’ll make an exception.”

Kurt rolls his eyes and Sebastian opens the door.

The room is dark, lit from within by two large, pillar candles, almost the size of dinner plates, with five wicks a piece lit in their centers. The room smells like warm vanilla, and Kurt suspects the candles must be scented.

His eyes sweep the room, adjusting to the low light, picking out strange shapes and silhouettes crowded all around. His eyes widen when he sees that the shapes are vases and bowls, each one filled with roses – red roses, white roses, lilac roses, yellow roses. They’re lying across his desk, positioned on every small end table and dresser. Petals are scattered across the floor, leading to the bed where even more petals lay scattered.

Kurt takes a step back but Sebastian grabs his arm and pulls him forward, leading him inside the room. He closes the door, and with the sounds from the hallway shut out Kurt can hear a low string of music playing – some sort of soft, but not cheesy, jazz.

It’s cozy.

It’s romantic.

It’s perfect.

It’s infuriating.

“What is this?” Kurt says in a voice that falls short of the anger he feels.

“I did this for you, Kurt,” Sebastian says, hoping it was obvious.

“Why are you doing this?” Kurt asks, not sure why he feels offended, but he kind of does, even though this is probably the nicest thing anyone has ever done for him.

“Because, it didn’t feel right,” Sebastian admits, “the way I took your virginity…”

“But isn’t that what you do?” Kurt asks, trying to keep his eyes from staring at the room full of roses – beautiful, fragrant roses lining every conceivable surface.

“Yeah, I guess.” Sebastian runs his hand up into his hair and looks down at his feet, obviously uncomfortable, maybe even ashamed. “But you’re…different, Kurt. You’re special.”

Kurt turns in a circle, taking one last look at the room before turning on Sebastian.

“When did you decide that?” Kurt asks. “I thought you were working your way through the senior class. I thought I was the ass that was going to be hardest to get. I mean, I was just a trophy for you. Just like everyone else.”

“You’re not just a trophy,” Sebastian argues, “and you’re not like everyone else.”

“Wh-why didn’t you tell me that before?” Kurt narrows his eyelids, glaring at Sebastian, trying to see past the lies.

“Because you didn’t want to listen,” Sebastian says simply. “I could have said it, but you wouldn’t have believed me, just like you don’t believe me now.”

Kurt sighs. He’s not quite as bitter about everything now. Instead, he’s really confused.

“Look,” Sebastian says, taking Kurt’s hand and holding it gently. “I know what you wanted when you came to see me in the boiler room, but I feel like I _took_ your first time. Would you _give_ me your second? Please?”

Kurt looks down at Sebastian’s hand holding his, watches the shadows dance along their skin. Here, in the dark, it’s hard to tell them apart, one from the other.

“And it doesn’t have to be tonight,” Sebastian continues, “if you don’t want to. We can just sit and talk and…”

Kurt leans in and presses his lips against Sebastian’s, silencing him with a kiss. It’s an attempt, and knowing how important it is to Kurt, Sebastian lets him take it – he doesn’t overpower him or overwhelm, he doesn’t take over. They can share a hundred kisses tonight, if that’s what Kurt wants, but this one is for Kurt, so he lets Kurt take this moment and define perfect.

Kurt steps away from Sebastian, letting go of his hand. Sebastian’s heart sinks as he watches him back away toward the door. But Kurt takes only a single step…toward the candles. With a shy smile, he blows out the pillar candles one at a time, and all at once, the room goes dark.


	131. Where I Find Peace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dom/sub scene with a bit of a twist. Warnings for bondage, whipping, biting and blood (not gory), and a touch of implied anxiety. Rated M.

The door swings open slowly, wood creaking, its echo unsettling as Sebastian struts inside the dark, hushed room. A single shaft of silvery moonlight from a nearby window leads him to the pale man kneeling tall on the hardwood floor – his head bowed, his eyes downcast, the picture of perfect submission.

“Well, well, well,” Sebastian says, his voice thick with the sound of his disapproval, “what have we here?”

The man on the floor doesn’t speak, he doesn’t move. He’s been kneeling, basking in his torment, waiting for over an hour, but time means little to him here in this place of discipline and obedience, this cave where he comes to find his focus and become himself again.

Sebastian grins at the man’s unflinching devotion. He shuts and locks the door behind him, the latch sliding into place with the discordant screech of metal rubbing against metal, followed by an audible _click_.

“It has come to my attention that you have been a very _very_ bad boy,” Sebastian says, using a specific, practiced sneer – a sarcastic overtone required in the control of the man at his feet, “and for that, you need to be punished.”

Sebastian eyes the man in the shining moonlight, still as polished stone, but beneath his skin a tremor of something sick and dangerous tries desperately to break free – to reach out to Sebastian and bring _him_ to his knees. Sebastian is careful. He’s seen this before. For the most part, he knows how to handle it, yet it’s still risky.

Sebastian has to be completely on his guard. He was mostly asleep when the man slipped in, quietly retreating to his appointed spot in the playroom, and knelt on the floor to wait for punishment to come.

Sebastian circles the man. He’s naked - his clothes hung neatly on a hook in the corner. His hands rest on his knees, long fingers with perfectly manicured nails curled over the joints. His broad shoulders do not sag, and his spine is straight. His hair falls in front of his face, but Sebastian can still see him.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk,” Sebastian tutts, clucking with his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “Shame on you.”

The man on the floor shivers the tiniest bit – not out of cold and not out of fear. It’s a reaction to being taunted, one that’s hard for the man to repress.

“Now, now,” Sebastian continues, upping the ante slightly, “none of that.” Sebastian goes to the wall and picks a collar from a long line of collars hanging. He chooses one that is thick and spiked with a D-ring in the center. He works quickly, collaring the man, pulling the strap tight. He hooks the D-ring to a chain attached to a bolt in the floor, and there he has the man tethered, rendering him less of a threat.

The collar and the chain are not meant to hurt him or provoke him. Its purpose is to sedate him – to keep him grounded. It’s not so much a physical barrier but a mental one. It’s a boundary that he’s been conditioned to respect.

Sebastian steps back and looks down at the chained man.

The danger – for the moment – has been locked safely away.

“Alright now,” Sebastian says, returning to the wall for what he knows he’ll need, “I think the braided bullwhip.” He reaches out to touch it, feeling a nibble of apprehension creep under his skin when his fingertips come in contact with the leather whip, but he doesn’t allow himself to linger on it.

Sebastian knows that _he_ is waiting.

He can hear Sebastian’s heartbeat.

He can smell Sebastian’s fear.

Sebastian needs to push the fear aside to do this correctly or _he’ll_ be the one punished for his failure.

He wraps his fingers around the handle and lifts the whip off its hook on the wall.

“This has to be my favorite,” Sebastian says, unrolling it and snapping it once in the air, “the sound that it makes, the marks it leaves…”

Sebastian runs the braided end of the whip over the man’s skin, caressing his back from his shoulders down along the reach of his spine. Sebastian hears the links of the chain slide together as the chain tightens, the man having straightened up farther to follow the movement of the whip along his skin.

“Eager,” Sebastian mumbles. “So very eager to be punished. Maybe I should wait a while.”

Sebastian feels the growl more than he hears it, and he knows he’s stepped over the line.

“I think thirteen lashes will be sufficient,” Sebastian backpedals quickly, rectifying his mistake. He steps put and plants his feet, keeping an eye trained on the unblemished back he’s about to mar.

“Shall I make you count it out for me?” he asks, his voice a little less confident than before. He waits a moment in the silence, waiting for an objection before he begins. Sebastian raises his arm and brings the whip down, the tip barely cutting into the man’s skin, leaving an angry welt right below his shoulder blade.

“One,” the man grinds out. The word is slightly slurred, as if he’s struggling to speak.

“Very good,” Sebastian praises. “Let’s try that again.”

He raises his hand and brings the whip down again, this time making a deeper mark along the opposite shoulder blade.

“Two,” the man says. Concern grows in Sebastian’s mind when the man’s voice sounds just as slurred as before.

Sebastian says nothing with the next two lashes, aiming these on the man’s buttocks. The chain tightens as he groans, “three…four…”

The slurring starts to subside and Sebastian feels calmer. The voice of the man on his knees is gravelly, menacing, but now it sounds much more human than before.

“That’s it,” Sebastian mutters, not so much in the commanding, dominating tone, but more in a supportive, comforting way, “come back to me.”

His whip comes down three more times, one lash following on the heels of the lash before it, needing the rapid fire strikes to quicken the change.

“Five…six…seven…”

Each strike banishes the monster farther and farther away, and _his_ Kurt starts to return.

Sebastian snaps two matching lashes over Kurt’s thighs, and he hears the chain tighten again.

“Eight…nine…”

The growling is less threatening, more evocative. Kurt is extending the reach of his mind to touch Sebastian. Kurt sends Sebastian images of praise, of reward – a night of glorious rapture ahead of him for his obedience. This brings Sebastian’s bravado back and his hand comes down again.

“Ten…”

Kurt fights to keep from throwing his head back, not quite done with his transformation, but it’s visible enough to Sebastian that he risks a harder hit.

Two more, in fact.

The sound of the whip snapping vibrates through the air.

“Eleven…twelve…”

The utterance that passes between Kurt’s lips shoots straight through Sebastian’s body, touching every nerve ending, igniting every muscle fiber.

It’s like a kiss.

It sears his skin without a single touch.

It’s a promise of things to come.

Sebastian can see the marks on Kurt’s back – some simply swollen, some areas of skin broken, blood that Sebastian knows isn’t entirely Kurt’s seeping down his skin, painting it in morbid streaks of red.

Sebastian finds an unmarked area on Kurt’s left thigh and aims there. The whip slices through cleanly and Kurt moans.

“Thirteen…”

It sounds like a sigh.

It’s intoxicating, alluring. It makes Sebastian _want_. It pools in his stomach like blistering, molten gold, so hot his body can’t contain it. He needs that sigh to release it. He raises his hand again.

Kurt straightens his back at the nearly imperceptible sound of the whip end sweeping the floor, ready to strike.

“Enough, pet,” Kurt commands and Sebastian jolts, taking a step back as Kurt rises from his kneeling position on the floor, the links of the chain that keep him bound breaking apart with little effort from the vampire, still collared and on his feet. He turns to Sebastian, pressed against the wall behind him.

“W-was that…”

“Perfect, pet,” Kurt coos. He reaches out a hand and Sebastian relinquishes the whip. Kurt smiles – blood red lips parting to reveal fangs that have shrunk significantly since his return home. “You did excellently.”

Kurt had left Sebastian alone in their bed, as he does almost every night, to haunt the city streets and feed. Kurt searches out people who think evil thoughts too loudly. He feasts on those who would prey on others.

It’s not out of a sense of nobility.

He enjoys the chase.

He happened to stumble across a vagrant whose mind crossed the line from evil to psychopathic. Kurt had absorbed his blood lust, his thirst for vengeance (a vengeance which will go unfulfilled). Kurt left his broken and mangled body in a dumpster behind an alley, and took to the streets in a frenzy. He had no choice but to return to his apartment and turn himself over to the service of his loyal pet, to bring him back to normality…or, at least, as normal as Kurt’s vampire nature would allow him to be.

Sebastian stands as straight as he dares, careful not to look too proud with himself, though he doesn’t cower.

He doesn’t fear Kurt’s wrath. What he fears is Kurt’s indifference, but as long as he obeys he’ll never have reason to deserve that particular punishment.

“Now,” Kurt purrs, tossing the whip aside as he approaches Sebastian, red eyes glowing in the dark, “shall I reward my pet?”

Sebastian swallows, his heart racing, his pulse thrumming, all of these things quiet lures, reeling Kurt in.

“P-please, Master,” Sebastian begs, his head bowed, willingly returning the power that he had been lent only long enough to complete his appointed task.

Kurt smiles, grotesquely beautiful in the moonlit room, his gypsum skin glowing, the marks on his back already healing. He removes the collar from his own neck and fastens it around Sebastian’s, brushing his fingertips over the frantic pulse that speeds up beneath his touch. Kurt looks at Sebastian’s body, frowning at the white t-shirt and the flannel lounge pants he’s wearing. Kurt catches the collar of the shirt with the razor-sharp tip of his nail and pulls down in one swift motion. It shreds completely down the front and hangs open, exposing Sebastian’s chest and that space above his heart that’s marked with the fading and silver scars left from repeated feedings.

Kurt’s eyes trace over the spot and Sebastian’s eyelids flutter shut, enjoying the sensation of his vampire’s eyes staring hungrily at him, on him like flesh-and-blood fingers caressing his skin. Kurt licks his lips, grabbing hold of what’s left of the chain and dragging his loyal pet over to the only piece of furniture in the room – a king-sized bed covered in pristine white sheets, begging to be torn to shreds just like the shirt sliding down Sebastian’s arms. He throws his pet down on the mattress and hovers over him, looking down with inhuman eyes at the trembling man beneath him. With one hand, Kurt removes the remains of cotton fabric, stopping for a moment to palm over Sebastian’s achingly hard cock.

“Oh, Sebastian,” Kurt hisses, eyes moving chaotically over Sebastian’s face, his body, taking the sight of his pet’s body in all at once, “you used to be such a cocky little bastard. Now, here you are…my slave. What have I done to you, hmm? What have I turned you into?”

“Nothing I didn’t ask you for, Master,” Sebastian answers, daring to speak this one time without permission.

“Yes,” Kurt hums over Sebastian’s skin, delighted with the goose flesh that blossoms at the touch of his lips, “you do _beg_ for it, don’t you?”

With the tip of one fang, Kurt opens up a tiny hole amidst the scars on Sebastian’s chest, the cry that escapes Sebastian’s lips one of pure ecstasy.

“Yes, Master,” Sebastian sighs, head rolling back and forth on his neck as the sensation of this blood claim overwhelms him. “Please, yes.”

Kurt watches a single drop of blood roll down Sebastian’s skin, leading another and another in a small stream that Kurt catches on his tongue and licks dry, his lips becoming redder, his smile growing wider.

“You want me to make you cum like this, don’t you,” Kurt says – not asking since he’s confident of the answer. He latches over the hole with his mouth and licks circles around the edge with his tongue, not close enough to close the wound, but to send tingles shooting through Sebastian’s body, sparks pulsing through his veins.

“Yes,” Sebastian groans, his hips bucking up involuntarily, searching for Kurt’s body, hoping Kurt will let Sebastian have him.

“Well, then…” Kurt follows the trail of blood down Sebastian’s chest to other healed over marks, each one waiting to be opened, “allow me to put you out of your misery.”

_***The scene depicted here might be a little bit confusing with regard to the power play involved. Kurt and Sebastian are not switches in this scenerio. Kurt is very much Sebastian’s Dom. This is a very specific and choreographed scene. Sebastian takes his cues from Kurt throughout. Kurt uses this form of domination to bring himself back from the brink of turning completely into a monster._


	132. Revenge of the Car Napper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this for the Kurtbastian Hiatus Project prompt ‘road trip’. I hope you like it, Futurefic, humor.

“Kurt?”

Sebastian tries to be nice about it. He tries to be gentle. He tries to wake Kurt slowly, the way a loving boyfriend should, but when Sebastian shakes his shoulder for the fifth time and Kurt doesn’t even blink his eyes, Sebastian loses his cool.

He grabs Kurt by the shoulder and shoves him back and forth hard enough to jostle his head on his shoulders.

“Kurt!”

Kurt snorts indelicately and sits up straight in his seat like he’s been shot.

“ _(Shn-ick)_ Wh-what!? What happened? What’s going on? Did another car hit us?”

Sebastian rolls his eyes, slowing down the Navigator, preparing to pull to the side of the road.

“No, Kurt,” Sebastian says, his voice tight with a desperate need to sleep, “we were supposed to switch off more than half-an-hour ago.”

“Right! Right, right, right, right…” Kurt mumbles, his eyes fluttering closed, his head nodding with sleep. Sebastian sees him drifting off and (seeing no other cars on the road, not that he really cares if there are) slams his hand down on the horn.

“Kurt!” he yells, the sound amplified in the confines of the vehicle.

Kurt’s eyes snap open.

“I’m awake!” he says, sitting bolt upright again.

“Kurt!” Sebastian whines.

“I’m sorry!” Kurt says.

“Well, why did you take that Goddamned Ambien to begin with?” Sebastian moans, realizing with despair that Kurt is probably in no condition to drive regardless of how Sebastian is about to die in his seat.

“You know I get sick on long car rides,” Kurt says in his defense. “It was either I sleep or I vomit. Which would you have preferred?”

“At this point, Kurt,” Sebastian says between clenched teeth, “I don’t care if we were swimming in it as long as I could put my head down for an hour!”

Kurt glares at Sebastian with disgust.

“Ewww!” he says, his head dropping subconsciously back down onto the headrest behind him, his eyelids falling shut.

“Kurt?” Sebastian glances between Kurt and the road, trying to assess the current consciousness of his drugged boyfriend. “Kurt?” Another glance and Sebastian can see that Kurt’s mouth has dropped open; he can hear him snoring softly.

“Kurt? Fuuuucccccckkkkkk!” Sebastian jumps up and down in the driver’s seat, smacking his hands down on the steering wheel until his palms begin to sting. His tantrum dies down when he surrenders to a yawn, realizing with dismay that he’s wasting the little energy he has left while on a road with no turnouts for him to pull-over and take an emergency snooze.

Sebastian resigns to driving for as long as he can, and find a way to get back at his boyfriend later.

An hour down the road and Sebastian’s mind is swimming with ways he can take revenge on Kurt. It might not be the nicest subject to dwell on, but for now focusing on his vindictive nature is the only thing keeping him awake. His eyes shift from time to time to look at his selfish boyfriend resting comfortably in the passenger seat.

Bitterly, Sebastian pokes Kurt in the arm.

Nothing.

He smacks Kurt on the shoulder.

Still nothing.

He licks a finger and sticks it in Kurt’s ear.

Kurt grumbles in his sleep, shifts position, and for a second Sebastian is relieved, certain that a _wet_ _willy_ did the trick where all else has failed to wake him, but then he settles down and starts to snore softly again.

Sebastian smacks a hand down in frustration as Kurt snoozes away. He glares at Kurt through the rearview mirror. He changes lanes sharply and then back again. Kurt rolls toward the door and then flops back to his original position.

Not a stir.

“Un-fucking-believable,” Sebastian mutters.

His eyes flick to Kurt, whose mouth has dropped further open, almost inhumanly – more like a python unhinging his jaw to devour a large rodent.

“At least he’s not drooling,” Sebastian comments. “And thank God no one _important_ is here to see this,” he says louder, still trying to wake Kurt up. “God forbid your friends from _Vogue_ saw you with your mouth hanging open and your hair all mussed up.” Sebastian gasps dramatically. “What would Isabelle Wright say if she saw you?”

Sebastian blinks, aiming his head toward the cold air rushing in through the cracked-open window, to stay awake. With the frigid wind prying his eyes open and the howling whoosh of it drowning out the sound of Kurt’s snoring, he can think much more clearly.

He suddenly gets a nasty, wicked idea.

He sits back in his seat and pulls his iPhone out of the dock on the dashboard.

“I know you get sooo angry when I use my phone while I drive,” Sebastian mocks to a still unconscious Kurt while simultaneously flicking through his apps to find the camera, “but what you don’t know won’t bother you…yet.”

***

They reach their hotel a little after two in the morning. It’s too late for a dip in the hot tub to ease Sebastian’s stiff muscles, so he zeros in on the shower instead, determined to let the hot spray beat the ache out of him.

“I am so so so sorry,” Kurt repeats for the thousandth time. “I totally…”

“Just…just forget it,” Sebastian groans. He reaches for his luggage, but a chipper and fully-energized Kurt swoops in and grabs it before Sebastian can pick it up.

“No,” Kurt says, “I was an ass, and I promise I’ll make it up to you.”

“Well, how about you drive the rest of the way to San Francisco,” Sebastian suggests, “this way _I_ can spend seven hours sleeping.”

“Done,” Kurt agrees, placing a kiss on Sebastian’s cheek and leading the way to their room. “But in the meantime, why don’t you get the shower started…” Kurt runs the keycard into their door and holds it open so a barely conscious Sebastian can stumble inside, “and I’ll join you in a little bit to help _wash your back_ …”

 _Wash your back_ has always been their secret code for an in-shower blow job. It was something adolescent they had come up with in high school so that they could talk about sex under their Dalton teachers’ noses, and it kind of stuck.

Sebastian’s face lights up.

“You promise?” he asks, turning and pulling Kurt into the room, wrapping his arms around his waist.

“I promise,” Kurt says.

Sebastian smiles wider.

“Swear on your entire collection of McQueen scarves that no matter what, you’ll come into the shower with me and…uh… _wash my back_.”

Kurt’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise that Sebastian would feel the need to have him make such a promise.

“Of course,” Kurt reassures him. “You know how much I love it.”

“Great.” Sebastian kisses Kurt on the forehead and heads for the bathroom. “I’ll get the water started.”

“I’ll be with you in just a second,” Kurt says, unpacking his laptop and setting it up on the table by the window, “I just want to check Facebook. All of our East Coast friends should be awake by now. I want to update my status.”

“You do that,” Sebastian says, grabbing his toiletries kit and walking into the bathroom with a maniacal grin on his face.

Sebastian shuts the bathroom door and stands quietly behind it, listening to Kurt mutter as he checks his Facebook page.

“Wow!” he calls out so Sebastian can hear. “I have 32 new notifications. We’ve only been gone for a day…what!”

Sebastian throws a hand over his mouth to stifle his laughing.

“What the fu…” Kurt says, his voice growing more and more agitated as he flips through his recent posts – more specifically, recent photos he was tagged in.

There’s an unnerving quiet, and then suddenly –

“ _SEBASTIAN_!”

“Hurry up, babe,” Sebastian calls out sweetly through choking laughs, “the water’s getting cold, and you promised to come in and _wash my back_.”

Sebastian laughs louder when the bathroom door shakes with the force of the shoe Kurt threw at it.

Sebastian jumps away from the door before something heavier follows. He undresses and steps into the shower, under the spray. So, maybe he won’t get his blow job, but for now, revenge is much, much sweeter.


	133. What's Cooler Than Being Cool?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this is just something quick and funny inspired by the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, featuring Hunter Clarington. Warning for language.

Kurt and Hunter both peer down into matching five-gallon orange buckets, purchased at the Home Depot, and filled almost to the top with cold water. In the water, dozens of square ice cubes float, bobbing in a calm current that’s stirred by the occasional breeze.

“So, Sebastian got called out yesterday for the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge,” Kurt says, rolling back and forth on his heels as he stares at the copacetic cubes of ice swaying gently in his bucket.

“Yup,” Hunter responds. A stronger breeze blows the ice cubes around, and Hunter wraps his arms around his bare chest, imagining what those solid cubes of frozen water are going to feel like hitting his skin. _At least I thought to wear sweat pants_ , he thinks, side-eying Kurt in his black tank top and shorts.

“So explain to me why _we’re_ here again?” Kurt asks, raising his eyes to watch his fiancé talking with his assistant, Marco, who volunteered to film Hunter and Kurt dousing each other with freezing cold ice water in Sebastian’s stead.

“He promised he’d get me Delilah Sampson’s phone number,” Hunter confesses, glancing over to Kurt with a sheepish expression creeping onto his face.

“The personal shopper from his office?” Kurt asks with a hint of approval.

“Yeah.” Hunter meets Kurt’s eyes and nods.

“She’s nice,” Kurt says. “Pretty.”

“Yeah.”

Both men look back down at their ice-filled buckets and sigh, uncomfortable with the current conversation. Kurt and Hunter have never really been friends. Hunter didn’t exactly approve of Sebastian dating Kurt in high school, and Kurt thought Hunter was a stuck-up, insufferable ass. After he got his Master’s in Finance, Hunter became Sebastian’s account, but not before Kurt became Sebastian’s fiancé. Regardless of the connection, they never turned things around and became bosom buddies. But here they were, about to pour cold water over each other’s heads, and all because of Sebastian.

At least they had they had _that_ to bond over.

“What about you?” Hunter asks. “I mean, he’s marrying you, so what does he have to hold over your head?”

“Nothing,” Kurt says. “He just promised to take me shopping.”

“Oh,” Hunter says, sounding a bit disappointed, “I thought he was threatening to leak a certain sex video onto the Internet or something.”

Kurt snaps his head up to look at Hunter with a conjoined look of shock and disgust on his face.

“He told you about that?” Kurt whispers.

“Nope,” Hunter chuckles, shaking his head, “but you just did.”

Kurt’s eyes go wide, stunned that Hunter played him, but he laughs when he sees that Hunter’s chuckle is more joking than cruel. At that moment, Sebastian laughs at something Marco says, and both doomed men grow quiet. They look over at Sebastian, who steals a glance back at them, and when he sees their grim faces, Sebastian laughs louder.

“You know, it’s kind of fucked up that he found a way to get us to do this so that he doesn’t have to get wet,” Hunter comments, watching as Sebastian starts to talk into the cell phone camera that Marco is holding.

“Yeah,” Kurt says. “He has a thing about getting wet while he’s fully clothed - especially his socks. He cannot STAND to have water in his socks.”

“I remember that from school.” Hunter looks down at his bucket of water thoughtfully, watching the ice cubes turn and bob as they start to melt. “You know, he’s already sent the $20,000 to ALS.”

“And I have Delilah’s phone number in my contacts,” Kurt says, watching Hunter, who raises his eyes to meet Kurt’s. It only takes that one look for both men to know that they are both thinking the same thing.

Kurt raises an eyebrow and Hunter nods.

“Okay guys,” Sebastian says, clapping his hands together in front of his chest, beaming with that wicked smirk he gets when a plan he’s made is about to come to fruition, “I’ve already made my challenges, so let’s see someone get wet.”

Hunter picks up his bucket of ice water.

Kurt picks up his bucket of ice water.

They both raise their buckets, ready to douse each other, but at the last moment they turn.

Sebastian has only a second before he realizes what’s about to happen.

His face goes blank.

“Wait…” he says right when both men upturn their buckets over his head, soaking him thoroughly.

“What th _HOLY SHIT_!” Sebastian screeches. “You motherfuckers! Fuckfuckfuckfuck!”

Kurt puts his bucket down.

Hunter tosses his aside.

“Did you get all that, Marco?” Kurt asks as he passes the laughing assistant struggling to keep the camera straight.

“Sure did, Mr. Hummel,” he chirps back.

“You…you two...” Sebastian stammers, teeth chattering, unable to collect his thoughts with ice sliding down the back of his shirt, traveling lower and lower the more he shivers, “FUCK! I have ice in my fucking pants!”

Kurt retrieves his iPhone from a nearby table and motions for Hunter to follow him.

“These were $650 Gucci jeans, Kurt!” Sebastian wails as the men retreat to Kurt’s Navigator. “If you have no respect for me, I would think that at least _you_ could respect the jeans, Kurt!”

“It looks like Delilah’s available for lunch in half-an-hour,” Kurt says, reading the response to the text he sent while he and Hunter walked to his SUV.

“Sounds great,” Hunter says, hopping into the passenger seat and putting on his seat belt.

“Kurt!” Sebastian screams, waving a hand…or maybe flipping him off. Kurt is laughing too hard to watch him. Kurt pulls the vehicle away to a symphony of Sebastian cursing and dancing while he attempts to dislodge the ice from his underwear.


	134. The Birds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Kurt and Sebastian’s dream home is attacked by birds, they have to evacuate…or risk being torn to pieces. 
> 
> Written for the Kurtbastian Hiatus Project prompt ‘movie/book AU’. I chose Alfred Hitchcock’s 1963 classic 'The Birds’. Warning for anxiety, bird attacks, mention of death (not major characters), blood and wounds. Has some humorous moments.

“I changed my mind. I can’t do it.”

“What!?” Sebastian, poised at the front door, ready and raring to go, turns his head to stare at Kurt with a look of disbelief on his careworn face. “What do you mean you can’t do it?”

Kurt doesn’t see Sebastian’s comical glare because his eyes are glued to the spectacle outside – the one that has them trapped inside their house, keeping them from leaving.

Birds. Hundreds upon hundreds of birds. Birds of all kinds – crows, ravens, gulls, sparrows, pigeons. This bizarre menagerie of flocking birds has settled quite completely over their small town of Bodega Bay. No one knows where they came from or why they’re here, but the only thing that seems certain is they have no intention of leaving.

The birds want this town. They’ve claimed it as their own.

They’ve even killed in order to take it – a school teacher, a neighbor, even an ex-lover of Sebastian’s have all been brutally murdered by these savage birds. No one took them seriously when they first arrived, but at the time the attacks weren’t all that horrific. A child playing in the park got nipped on the ankle. A few birds flew into the window of a moving truck. A small flock of sparrows got into an attic and refused to be eradicated.

But as time went by, the attacks escalated, until a combined flock of gulls and ravens attacked a family diner, chasing Kurt into an old-school phone booth and trapping him inside. That was nearly the end for Kurt, and not just because the birds were ruthlessly slamming into the glass, shattering it, picking away at it to get at him, but because Kurt was claustrophobic, and being trapped in that small space almost broke him.

If Sebastian hadn’t gotten to him in time, Kurt would have burst out of the thing and run crazy, attacking birds or no.

They had been holed up in their house for the past three days, keeping the birds at bay. They listened to the news reports on the radio, (Their WiFi had been knocked out, and all they had was an emergency wind up FM radio that Kurt only owned because his father insisted. _Thank you, dad._ ) but no one from California to Washington had any answers. The only thing Kurt and Sebastian had heard that concerned them was that Bodega Bay was being evacuated, and if they didn’t leave right away then they would be barricaded in when the National Guard arrived. After that, it wouldn’t matter. Because of the fear of Avian transmitted diseases, no one would be let out.

“Kurt, we really don’t have the time to discuss this,” Sebastian hisses, “we’re running out of time.”

“I…I know,” Kurt stammers, trying his best to back away from the window but finding himself stuck to the spot, paralyzed with fear. “I know, but, what if we just stay here?” Kurt reasons. “We’ve been safe so far.”

“Kurt…they got in through the fireplace last night,” Sebastian says, his eyes sweeping the living room to the numerous dead bodies of parakeets that had stormed through their open flue in an attempt to kill them. “So this damn house is no safer than anywhere else in this fucking town. And besides, in a few days we won’t have any food or water. Kurt, we have to go now!”

Kurt stares at a raven walking along the railing on the porch outside. It stops at the post cap and perches, then turns around in a slow circle. It catches Kurt’s eyes staring and caws loudly, causing the other birds around it to turn toward Kurt and caw. Kurt jumps back.

“Yeah, no. I can’t go out there.”

“Kurt,” Sebastian says, at the fringe edge of his patience, “you either walk out there on your own two feet and get into my car, or I am carrying your skinny ass out over my shoulder. It’s your choice.”

“Uh…” Kurt swallows hard when the raven who started the alarm flings itself at the window, “I think you’re going to have to carry me. Sorry.”

Sebastian drops the bag he’s holding and rushes over to where Kurt has taken up an immovable post in front of the window. He picks his husband up swiftly and tosses him over one shoulder, hardly grunting at all with the effort, and Kurt can’t help but become inappropriately turned-on.

“Stop squirming,” Sebastian teases, but with a hint of annoyed urgency in his tone. He smacks Kurt once on the ass to keep him still. “I don’t have the time to spank you properly.”

“Well, I’m sorry that my little phobia is getting in the way of your Neanderthal instincts.”

“Yeah, well, serves me right for marrying a man with a bird phobia. When did this happen, anyway?”

“You mean besides the fact that I was attacked not a few days ago by these things?” Kurt grouses, trying to send a kick to Sebastian’s ass and almost dislodging himself from his shoulder. “I actually have a past trauma with regard to birds.”

“Oh, please tell me this isn’t another kinky _Blaine_ thing,” Sebastian whines, rolling his eyes.

“I don’t think now is the time to discuss my ex’s bird fetish,” Kurt scolds. “Do you?”

Sebastian sighs and heads for the door, leaning down to pick up his discarded bag.

“Now, I need you to keep quiet,” Sebastian warns Kurt. “Not a peep from you, you got it? I don’t care what the fuck happens out there.”

Kurt whimpers but doesn’t say a word. He can’t see what Sebastian is doing, and he doesn’t turn to look. Once he hears the door open and feels the rush of cold air hit his skin, he closes his eyes tight.

Sebastian stares out past the patio and the yard beyond, trying to keep his focus locked on the Porsche sitting in front of the house, but the constant movement in the corner of his vision keeps pulling his focus away. Even if he doesn’t look at them, he can’t exactly ignore them. They are loud; the multitudes of birds perching all around, waddling about his feet, some circling overhead, not necessarily cawing or calling in any way, constitute an overwhelming din. The breathing, the scuttling, the flapping of wings have become an unnerving noise that engulfs him the minute he takes a tentative step into its midst. He feels Kurt shudder, but he does nothing to calm him.

Sebastian has to make it to the car, and make it there fast, but the mob of birds encroaching at his feet is making that difficult for him.

With Kurt slung over his shoulder, rigid as a statue, trying to keep still, Sebastian quickly assesses his options.

He can try to make a run for it. With the luggage in his hand and Kurt over his shoulder, it would be treacherous. He might fall right in the thick of the flock, and even if he doesn’t fall, the ruckus of him running will definitely send them on the attack.

That’s exactly what happened at the school the day the teacher, Marie, was killed. She had sent the children running out of the school house, telling them not to stop until they reached their homes, while she ran along to her own house with her niece. The flock followed the children, attacking and nipping one or two along the way, but the children all made it home with barely more than a few bites and scratches.

The bulk of the flock, however, went after Marie, almost as if they knew she was behind the children’s escape. She managed to shove her niece inside her house before they completely covered the poor woman.

According to the shivering, cowering girl they found hiding in a closet later in the evening, it took over an hour for her aunt to stop screaming.

Sebastian gets a sudden image of him and Kurt being consumed by the flock gathering at his feet, clustering in the air overhead, circling them, waiting for them to do something stupid and trip up.

 _Pass_.

Slow and steady it would have to be then.

Sebastian shuffles his feet slowly, each step an exercise in keeping his balance while he inches along. He feels the birds brush against his legs, nipping at his pants, stepping on his feet as they walk by. Sweat rolls down his back as he moves, not only from the stress of keeping Kurt from sliding off his shoulder (which maybe hasn’t been his greatest idea to date) but also from the heat seeping out of Kurt’s body and into his. They had opted to wear long-sleeved shirts in case of an attack, and right now, Sebastian was regretting it. Sliding along the wooden slats of the patio, barely making a sound, he’s able to maintain…until he gets to the stairs. As a reflex, he puts his hand on the railing to keep his balance.

His action is met by a sharp nip.

A large black raven stares down at the hand below him, and Sebastian bites his tongue to keep from cursing at the wretched thing.

He cautiously moves his hand, and the bird seems content to let him go without any further argument, keeping one oddly intelligent-looking eye trained on the foolish humans as they try to maneuver through the gulls that inhabit the stairs.

Sebastian keeps his mind blank, not wanting his thoughts to wander away on him at a crucial moment. If he could only get Kurt to relax and drape his body over him, that would be a tremendous help. His husband is stiff like a surfboard and holding his breath, which makes his ab muscles dig into Sebastian’s shoulder.

 _If he fucking passes out, I’ll kill him_ , Sebastian thinks as he descends the last step and makes his way through the yard.

_Scritch…scritch…scritch…scritch…_

The sound of Sebastian’s shuffling feet doesn’t seem to bother the birds, but it interests them.

Sebastian accidentally shoves one aside – not too forcefully – but it turns and caws, showing its displeasure with a bite to his ankle. Sebastian stops and holds his breath, waiting for the oncoming assault, but nothing happens. He can feel Kurt’s chest moving now, and he knows his husband is trying hard not to cry out loud. He wants to comfort him, to whisper to him that everything is going to be okay, but he doesn’t risk making a noise.

For some reason, the birds are letting them pass by, relatively unharmed.

Sebastian should be relieved, but he has a sinking feeling in his stomach.

He can see the car up ahead; their goal is within their grasp.

 _In the car and down the street toward the interstate_ , Sebastian repeats in his head. _In the car and down the street toward the interstate._

He reaches the gate to the white picket fence and swings it open. He can clearly see the car in front of them, not ten feet away, but one look at the reflection in the black paint and his heart stops.

The birds from the patio, the birds from the yard, the birds from the steps and the sidewalk all around are following them, closing in on them, hurrying to catch up with them before they make it to the car.

Sebastian pretends he didn’t see them and continues walking. Even when the birds at his feet no longer move aside when they see him coming, he finds empty spaces in between their feathery bodies and steps into them. He receives bite after bite to his ankles. Some of them break the skin and bleed, but he can’t stop.

Two feet away from the curb he realizes he has one more obstacle to cross before he can get Kurt into the car, and he curses his own stupidity for not dealing with it while they were still back in the house.

The doors to the Porsche are locked.

He needs his key fob to open it.

When it does, it will disable the alarm and make a loud chirping sound.

 _Shit_!

Sebastian isn’t sure that the sound won’t trigger the birds.

His ex was killed on his doorstep when his cell phone text alert went off.

A single _ping_ and the man was torn to pieces.

He has a plan, but he can’t relay it to Kurt. He’s stuck between a rock and a hard place with the unfortunate dueling outcomes being do they die now, or in a few minutes?

He can’t think about it anymore. He has no choice. The birds are going to attack, of that Sebastian is sure, and they’re not necessarily going to need the sound of an alarm as a signal to go ahead and do it.

He reaches into his pocket, not as slowly as he would have before, and he can already hear the flutter of feathers behind him grow louder. He hears Kurt let out a tiny choked gasp and that’s all he needs.

He presses the button on the fob.

The car alarm disengages.

_Chirp-chirp._

There’s a second of absolute silence, as if everything around them is collectively holding their breaths, and then the birds take flight.

Sebastian is moving before he registers the feeling of beaks biting his face and hands.

“Fuckfuckfuck!” he mutters through the pain as he rushes for the car. He feels wings beating against his arms and his back. He hears Kurt wail as a large gull descends on his exposed neck.

But Sebastian also hears the satisfying crunch of a few birds trampled underfoot, feels the wetness of their blood on his pants as they pop like overstuffed balloons, and he smiles grimly.

He drops the luggage, declaring it a lost cause as he opens the driver’s side door and throws Kurt inside along with the gull still latched to his bleeding neck. Sebastian tears the frantically flapping creature off of Kurt, wringing its neck in his hands and throwing the carcass to the ground.

A feverish onslaught of ravens and crows charge him. Every inch of exposed skin stings with razor-sharp nips and slices until his muscles become paralyzed from the pain. He barrels through, beating the birds that have latched onto his arms against the body of his car, but for every bird he kills, two more take its place, and the weight drags him to the ground.

The birds on his shoulder take aim for his eyes. He squeezes his eyes shut to protect them since he can’t bring his hands to his face.

He feels his body shaken and shoved, pulled and pushed, while a familiar scream echoes through his ears.

“ _Get…the fuck…off…my husband…you stupid…winged…vermin_!” Kurt screams. Hit after hit lightens the weight from Sebastian’s body. Finally, he stands on trembling legs and forces his way into the car. Sebastian gets into his seat and shuts the door behind him, coming face to face with his panting, hysterical husband. Gashes cover Kurt’s face and neck; blood stains his collar, as well as the rips and tears in his long-sleeved shirt. From the wide eyes staring back at him, Sebastian can only imagine what his own face looks like.

He doesn’t want to look.

“It’s okay,” Sebastian says, reaching out to Kurt, but pulling his hand away when he realizes there is almost nowhere on Kurt’s body he can touch that isn’t scratched and bleeding. “We’re safe. Everything is going to be fine.”

A heavy thud smacking into the windshield proves him wrong.

“Go!” Kurt yells in a hoarse whisper. “Go, go, go, go…”

“Okay,” Sebastian says, swiveling in his seat, eager to get away from the dark cloud of beaks and feathers surrounding his car before his husband slips into shock. “I’m going, I’m going, I’m… _shit_!” Sebastian pats his body up and down, checking every pocket, but he can’t find his keys. He peeks out the window, trying to see the sidewalk between the throng of bodies outside. “I dropped my keys!”

“What the fuck!?” Kurt yells, finally reaching a snapping point. “What the…how the fuck did you drop yours keys?”

“Did you happen to miss the five tons of birds trying to tear me apart?” Sebastian yells back. Sebastian takes a look all around the foot well of the car, feeling beneath the seat, straining to glimpse between the seat and the door panel. He catches sight of his fob, the small chain that connects to his key ring caught in the door. “Okay, I found them…”

“Thank God!” Kurt says, breathing a premature sigh of relief.

“They’re caught in the door,” Sebastian adds quickly, “I have to open the door to get them.”

“No!” Kurt squeals. “No, don’t open the door!” Kurt grabs at Sebastian’s arms, trying to pull at the fabric left on his sleeves and pull Sebastian away from the door. “Please!”

“Kurt, I have to get the keys,” Sebastian says firmly. “We’re not going anywhere without the keys.”

Kurt crawls to his side of the car, defeated, drawing his legs up in front of him and sealing his hands over his ears.

“No…” Kurt says quietly, shaking his head back and forth, sobbing behind his knees.

Sebastian knows they don’t have too long before he loses Kurt altogether. They have to go.

He takes a deep breath, getting one last look out the window at the birds hovering in front of the glass, staring in at him, waiting for him to make his move.

_One…_

He counts down to himself in his head, not wanting to alarm Kurt.

_Two…_

He lets the breath out between his teeth.

_Three!_

He grabs the fob and opens the door. Immediately, a flurry of yellow beaks shoves their way in the cracks of the door, grabbing at his fingers, tugging at his hair, aiming for his nose and eyes. With the keys secured in his fist, he pulls the door shut tight, ignoring the screeching cries of birds whose beaks he cracked in half.

“Okay, okay, okay,” he chants for Kurt’s benefit as he shoves the key into the ignition, “we’re going.”

The engine roars to life, causing the birds outside to spiral into a frenzy, throwing themselves at the car, gathering beneath the tires, making it impossible for Sebastian to drive.

Or so they think. Apparently, the local avian know nothing about the wonders of German engineering. Sebastian throws the car into gear and thunders through the mass of birds, blindly plowing a row. Feathers fly up all around them. Blood spatters the windows. The constant _thud, thud, thud_ of bodies battering the car reverberates around their ears, but Sebastian doesn’t stop as he makes his way to the interstate.

“The…the glass…” Kurt mutters as bird after bird collides with the windshield.

“It’s bulletproof,” Sebastian says with a humorless laugh. “Do you remember when you told me that was a ridiculous option to spend $15,000 on?”

“I was wrong, alright?” Kurt pleads with his hands still over his ears. “I was _wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong_!!”

Under other circumstances, Sebastian would have asked Kurt to repeat that into his phone so he could have it recorded for posterity, but they have cleared the fog of birds, and Sebastian is on the highway, speeding towards the blockade. Ahead of him, several soldiers in uniform begin closing their only exit. One soldier sees them, and taps the shoulder of the soldier beside her. The two send up an alarm, waving at the oncoming Porsche, gesturing for them to come on through.

Kurt peeks up as warm sunlight touches his skin again. His eyes blink against the bright light, and he scans the bit of highway he can see without moving his head too much to look around. The road is completely clear and quiet, without a single bird or car in sight.

“We’re…we’re the last ones out of the bay,” Kurt comments, a small smile growing on his blanched and bloodied face. “And…it doesn’t look too bad from here. Maybe they’ll get this cleaned up and someday we can go back.”

Sebastian’s eyes flick up to his rearview mirror and he swallows the lump in his throat. He puts an arm around Kurt’s shoulders, keeping his eyes focused forward as they slip through the barricade and it closes up behind them.

“That’s right, babe. It doesn’t look too bad from here,” Sebastian lies as his eyes take one last look at the beautiful home where they had chosen to live out the rest of their lives, completely buried by the flock that had trounced out their once beloved town.


	135. The Sacred and the Profane

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sebastian has inappropriate fantasies about his friend’s seventeen-year-old son.
> 
> This is a one-shot for the anon prompt ‘fantasy’.
> 
> Rated M. Warnings for talks about anxiety and attempted assault, underage, age gap, thoughts about sex (rimming, anal), foul language.

“So, are we on for golf at the club on Friday?” Sebastian asks his friend, extending a hand in his direction for a shake.

“You know, I don’t know how you managed to get me to go to that fancy club of yours,” Burt Hummel says with a laugh and a nod of his head, taking Sebastian’s hand and shaking it forcefully, “but yeah, I’ll see you there.”

“Great.” Sebastian returns Burt’s contagious laugh. “I’ll see you there.” His laughter dies as he adopts a more subtle, smooth smile, and turns to address the teenaged boy standing beside his father. “And will you finally be joining us?” Sebastian asks, trying not to stare too deeply into the impressionable young man’s eyes.

The boy swallows hard nonetheless, his mouth dropping open slightly, drawing the attention of Sebastian’s eyes immediately to his lips.

“Uh..”

“Kurt has a date on Friday,” Burt says, clapping a hand on his son’s shoulder.

“In the afternoon?” Sebastian asks, the focus of his eyes completely unchanged.

This time Burt doesn’t answer, waiting for his tongue-tied son to join the conversation.

“Uh…yeah,” Kurt says, wincing at his own voice, which becomes unnaturally high and pitchy when he gets nervous, “we’re going to play goony golf.”

“Oh,” Sebastian says, rounding out the syllable, drawing it out, “well, doesn’t Lima have any place that has glow-in-the-dark mini golf? It’s so much more fun in the dark.”

Sebastian winks and Kurt swallows again, but a blissfully ignorant Burt butts in with a laugh.

“We have one or two,” Burt says, continuing the conversation, “but Kurt’s got practice for a musical Friday night.”

“Wow,” Sebastian says, this time genuinely impressed, “I bet you’re the lead, right? What with that impressive voice of yours.”

Kurt blushes to his roots, his lips stuttering over words he isn’t even saying out loud.

“N-no,” he manages finally, “I’m in the chorus.”

Sebastian frowns and shakes his head.

“That’s a shame.” Sebastian reaches forward and puts a hand on Kurt’s shoulder, squeezing gently. “It’s sad that _public_ school of yours can’t seem to recognize true talent.” Sebastian sneers at the word _public_ but Kurt is more focused on the hand massaging his shoulder than the slight to his school. “Now, if you were attending Dalton…”

“Oh, Seb, we talked about this,” Burt interrupts, “that private school of yours is a little too rich for my blood.”

“But I’m an alumni,” Sebastian argues, turning his attention completely on Burt but leaving his hand to massage Kurt’s shoulder. “One phone call and he’d been in for sure…on scholarship!” He turns an imploring eye back to Kurt, whose expression is caught somewhere between ecstasy and terror. “They have a kick ass choir. The Warblers. They’re like rock stars, and I know they’d really appreciate a talent like yours.”

“Oh…” Kurt says, at a loss to speak up amid all of Sebastian’s compliments, “I…”

“That’s really nice of you,” Burt says, pulling Kurt away and leading him toward his pick-up truck, “but we’d better head out now or we’ll hit traffic.”

“I see what you’re doing,” Sebastian scolds his friend, “but we’re not done talking about this.”

“I’m sure we’re not,” Burt laughs, opening the door and pushing Kurt inside. “This is only, what, the fiftieth time you’ve brought it up?”

“You’ll see it my way eventually,” Sebastian calls when Burt slips into his seat. “I’m just trying to do what’s best for our boy.”

Burt waves and starts up his truck. He backs down the drive with his head turned to look over his shoulder, which is why he doesn’t notice the way Sebastian stares longingly at Kurt as he pulls away…or the way Kurt stares back.

Sebastian sighs as they drive away.

Yup, he’s going to hell.

Sebastian might not have all his moral marbles in the same bag, but even _he_ knows there are some things you don’t do…

…and your best friend’s seventeen-year-old son is one of those things - without a shadow of a doubt. That doesn’t mean he hasn’t thought about it. Maybe he is flattering himself in his older age, but he has a feeling that this boy likes him, too, with his flirty smiles and the way he blushes every time Sebastian pays him even the slightest compliment.

Or maybe Sebastian’s wrong. Maybe he’s turned into one of those creepy _To Catch a Predator_ guys, and poor, innocent Kurt has no idea how to tell Sebastian to fuck off and go away. He’ll admit that he does tend to come on a bit strong but when it comes to Kurt, Sebastian doesn’t seem to know how to turn it off. It’s not that Sebastian is desperate for ass. He definitely is not one of those guys who let himself go in his forties. He can hit up any bar or any night club, any night of the week, and come home with his pick of one-night boyfriends – some of them not much older than Kurt.

But as with all of the hapless clichés that tend to trap a man like Sebastian in its clutches - a man who has spent his life casually dating, a man who has never found _the one_ \- Kurt is different. He’s sweet and smart and fun…and it doesn’t help that he’s gorgeous. Even at seventeen, Sebastian knows this boy is not a heart breaker.

He’s definitely a life-ruiner.

But Kurt has his whole future ahead of him, things he needs to try and do and experience and fail at, and it would be immensely selfish for Sebastian to even entertain doing anything with him.

Besides, he knows his friend Burt. He loves the man like a brother. Sebastian was there when Burt’s wife Elizabeth died. He knows Burt is completely devoted to his only son.

He also knows Burt has a shotgun, and best friend or not, he wouldn’t think twice about shooting Sebastian – not necessarily to kill, but to maim – to torture him slowly until dying is the only merciful option left.

Sebastian turns from the doorway and retires to his room, ready to drink himself to sleep so he can get lost in his favorite, albeit completely taboo, fantasies about Kurt.

They usually start the same way.

Dream Kurt calls him in the middle of the night. The reason his subconscious mind supplies always varies – his car breaks down, he’s had a fight with his dad, he’s looking for a lay. Tonight’s reason - him and his quasi-boyfriend got into a fight, and the douchebag in question left Kurt on the side of the road.

 _Perfect_.

In his dream, Sebastian drives to the rescue, pulling up to a distraught Kurt in his midnight blue Porsche, and it was raining to boot.

Nice touch, subconscious mind.

Kurt has his arms wrapped around his torso when he drops into the leather seat, soaking wet and sobbing softly.

“I’m s-s-sorry for calling s-s-so late,” Kurt whimpers when Sebastian reaches past him to close the car door, “but I didn’t know w-what to d-do.” Kurt sniffles and Sebastian hands him a tissue. Kurt nods and whispers, “Thanks,” before daintily blowing his nose.

“Why didn’t you call your dad?” Sebastian asks, considering whether he should put a comforting hand on Kurt’s shoulder or keep his distance. He decides to keep his distance for now. Kurt looks pretty shaken up.

“B-because I sn-snuck out,” Kurt explains. “He d-doesn’t know I’m not home.”

Sebastian tsks, not intending to sound condescending, but when Kurt whimpers louder, he stops. Sebastian watches Kurt in silence as the boy settles down, hiding his face behind his hands.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Sebastian asks.

Kurt says nothing for a moment, then takes a deep breath in, preparing to speak.

“We were just supposed to go to the movies,” Kurt explains, his chest heaving with the words, “but then he tried to…to force himself on me.” New tears start down Kurt’s cheeks and Sebastian feels his heart twist in his chest. It’s a strangely intense feeling for a dream, but then again, he puts all of himself into these fantasies. “I told him that I didn’t want my first time to be in the back of a car.” Kurt leans into his outbreak of sobs, resting his forehead on his knees. Sebastian runs a hand down his back, trying to offer some comfort without stepping over any lines, except now he finds that he has another problem – dream or not, there’s a teenaged boy out there that he’s itching to kill.

He’s just about to ask Kurt where he is, where can he go find this kid and beat him into unconsciousness, when Kurt’s voice pipes up suddenly, breaking through Sebastian’s fog of vengeance.

“Please don’t take me home,” Kurt pleads. “I can’t…I can’t face my dad right now.”

Sebastian imagines his subconscious did that to move the dream along. Obviously, taking a tangent to beat up Kurt’s asshole ex-boyfriend would be a total boner kill, so he’ll bypass it for now and use it as fuel for other fantasies.

Sex with Kurt after avenging his honor could turn out to be super hot.

“I won’t,” Sebastian says, continuing to run his hand up and down Kurt’s spine, stopping to knead at tight muscles. “You’ll come home with me,” he says, making the decision last minute. “You can spend the night in the guest room, and tomorrow we’ll figure out what to tell your dad. How’s that?”

Kurt doesn’t have the strength to answer. He nods, lifting his head an inch from where it hides in his hands to give Sebastian a weak smile.

“Good.” Sebastian sits up and fires the engine, turning onto the highway and speeding back to his place.

He doesn’t remember the drive back to his house, but then again, he never does in these kinds of dreams. Kurt is simply sullen and quiet, and they don’t talk, since Kurt is completely heartbroken.

They get back to Sebastian’s place and things progress pretty quickly from there – scenes jumping from one to the other like he’s skipping through a DVD. He hands Kurt a towel and offers him a pair of pajamas, leading him to the shower and avoiding saying something cheesy like offering to wash his back. Kurt reaches out for the door knob, but then turns and rushes into Sebastian’s arms, wrapping himself up in Sebastian’s embrace and crying in earnest.

“Thank you, Sebastian,” Kurt says. Sebastian feels Kurt’s voice more than he hears it from where he has his head pressed into Sebastian’s shoulder. “I was so frightened…”

“That’s alright, Kurt,” Sebastian says, placing a small kiss to Kurt’s temple without realizing it and feeling his heart melt when Kurt risks giving Sebastian a kiss back on his shoulder. Then he turns and hurries into the bathroom, shutting the door and quickly turning on the shower water.

Fast forward again and Kurt is sitting in Sebastian’s lap, begging for a kiss, pleading with sweet, innocent words – “You can’t imagine how long I’ve dreamt about this…how long I’ve wanted to kiss you…I know I’m only seventeen, but I want to be with you…”

Sebastian, trying to be a gentleman, refuses – or at least prolongs the inevitable.

“No, Kurt…this isn’t right…you’re my best friend’s son…I’m so much older than you…this will never work…”

Sebastian doesn’t believe any of the things he says (he might in real life, but he doesn’t have to in these dreams) but putting Kurt off, making him beg for it, is part of what makes this fantasy so fucking hot.

Then the time comes and Sebastian _gives in_ , letting Kurt kiss him, turning the tables and capturing his lips when Kurt fumbles with his immature, inexperienced technique. Sebastian smiles, gathering Kurt in his arms, lifting him in the air and carrying him to his bed…because why not? This is Sebastian’s fantasy. This is the only place where Sebastian gets to have Kurt, so he’ll indulge.

Sebastian indulges when he undresses Kurt, one article of clothing at a time, peppering his skin with kisses – some soft and tender, some urgent and filthy. He indulges when he stares down at a naked Kurt. He stares until Kurt squirms, drinking in every inch of his creamy skin, his trim dancer’s body, the chestnut tuft of hair surrounding his impressive cock that grows with every sweep of Sebastian’s eyes and already leaking at the tip.

Sebastian leans forward to collect the tiny pearl of moisture on his tongue, and Kurt’s pale skin goes immediately dark red.

He indulges when he flips Kurt over, carefully pulling Kurt’s cheeks apart to stare at the rose-colored hole of his entrance, and attacks it with his tongue. He licks in circles with the tip and sucks at the delicate skin all around. Kurt’s moans and cries are like music, filling Sebastian’s ears and urging him on, lighting every inch of his skin with a fire to be buried deep inside this angelic boy, and when that time comes – when he dreams he’s pushing himself slowly into Kurt’s body – it’s like floating away to paradise.

“Yes, yes, yes,” Sebastian’s dream lover pants as Sebastian moves deep inside him, pulling out slowly and then pushing in again. Sebastian looks down at this magnificent boy – his long, lithe back arching towards him, his legs quivering with every drag of Sebastian’s cock. Sebastian scratches his nails over the swell of the boy’s cheeks - pale, untouched skin beneath his fingertips and a virgin ass tight around his cock…it’s so incredibly real that he can almost convince himself it is if not for the phenobarbital he took and the two glasses of whiskey he drank before bed.

That’ll make it all the more pathetic when he wakes up in the morning with the sheets sliding off the mattress from where he has rutted them so hard they actually pulled off the bed, stained and stiff with his own dried cum.

But right now isn’t the time for reality. Now is the time for losing his mind in this dream he’s made for himself – the perfect dream.

The perfect trap really, since it’s going to sting like hell when it’s gone.

He feels Kurt stiffen against him, hears him mewl like a cat as his hips stutter, hears his cries of lustful abandon as he cums, barely able to keep himself upright long enough for Sebastian to finish. Sebastian holds Kurt’s hips up, keeps his ass locked against Sebastian’s body so that he can fill him up, long and deep, cradled in this boy’s warm body until he has nothing left.

Sebastian smiles – he can feel the smile on his face as he sleeps – as he leans over to kiss down Kurt’s trembling back.

“How was that, my darling?” he whispers, knowing what the answer will be.

It’s always the same, and Sebastian _loves_ to hear it.

“Th-that…that was…oh my God…” Dream Kurt loses all ability to speak, collapsing on the bed and rolling on his back to look up into Sebastian’s satisfied face. Kurt shakes his head back and forth as he grasps for something coherent to say. “That was better than I dreamed it would be.”

Sebastian kisses Kurt again, tucking the boy beneath the blankets, chuckling privately at the irony.

***

Sebastian groans as he opens his eyes to begin his day. He doesn’t want to. He knows what’s waiting for him.

Nothing. He’s alone, surrounded but nothing but the evidence of his own wretched and shameful crutch – his sordid fantasies of a seventeen-year-old boy who Sebastian is determined, now more than ever, would do his best to stay fifty feet away from Sebastian at all times.

Like it or not, Sebastian is nothing but a fucking perv. Terrific sex dream or no, there’s no excuse for exploiting an innocent boy.

He decides once and for all that he’s going to make it his mission to forget all about Kurt and find a nice, stable, halfway decent man his own age to obsess over, starting today.

The thought makes him want to vomit.

But no more than the realization that he isn’t alone.

This time his phenomenal sex dream wasn’t a just dream.

He hears a contented sigh behind him and turns away from his bedside table where his clock, his phone, his car keys, and his single phenobarbital lay beside a tumbler full of whiskey.

Beside him in bed Kurt lays asleep, with mussed hair, a smile on his lips, and large marks purpling on his neck.

Sebastian’s breath catches in his throat as he tries to remember what exactly happened.

He was dreaming. He _did_ dream about all those things, but that didn’t mean they hadn’t happened.

He was reliving the events of the night.

Sebastian had retired with his pill and his whiskey, but he took a shower first, and by the time he got out his phone was ringing.

It was Kurt, crying, ditched on the side of the road.

Sebastian went to pick him up and then…

_Jesus fucking Christ!_

Sebastian holds his breath, his entire body shaking.

He can’t even find a way to be happy about having the most amazing night of his life…

…because the minute Burt finds out, he’s as good as dead.


	136. Not By Choice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here’s a one-shot for the anon who prompted ‘Sebastian’s comes home to find his parents got his a hybrid cat, and he’s mad’. It kind of went in a different direction, but I kind of like it. High school AU, hybrid!Kurt, angst, fluffy romance. Warning for mention of violence and discrimination.

“I didn’t want a cat,” Sebastian whined, dropping his backpack heavily on the floor and staring at the creature curled at the foot of his bed in disgust. “I wanted a dog, and even if I _did_ want a cat, I wouldn’t want some messed up freak of nature like that!”

“Sebastian,” his mother hissed, pulling her son out of the open doorway to his room and moving him out of earshot, “watch your language, young man! And he’s not a pet. He’s the son of a friend of your father’s. He’s going to be staying with us for the weekend.”

“Does he have to sleep on my bed?” Sebastian groaned. “He’s going to shed on all my stuff.”

His mother sighed, shaking her head in frustration.

“I want you to be extra-special nice to him…”

“Well, good luck with _that_ ,” Sebastian jeered, “because I’m going over to Sean’s tonight…”

“You are not,” his mother said firmly. “You will stay here and spend time with our new guest.”

“What!?” Sebastian exclaimed, his jaw dropping and his eyes opening wide in shock. “No! I’ve been looking forward to this sleepover for a week! You can’t do that!”

“Sebastian,” his mom started, putting her hands on his shoulders and bending a bit to look into his eyes, “it’s very important that you help out this weekend. That poor boy…”

“He’s not a boy,” Sebastian spat back.

“That poor _boy_ ,” his mother continued, her voice becoming progressively more stern, “has just been through something horrible, and…”

The musical ring tone of her cell phone cut through their conversation and she straightened, reaching into her pocket to fish the phone out. She looked at the number on the screen and frowned.

“I have to take this,” she announced, her eyes flicking back to her son, “we are _not_ done talking about this.” She touched the screen to answer the call and stepped away from Sebastian to talk, “Hello….”

Sebastian peeked around the doorway to look back at the fur-covered boy lying on his bed, only the boy was no longer on the bed. He had climbed off and crawled into the corner. There he lay on the hardwood floor, curled into a tight ball, with his hands…or were they paws - they looked like perfectly normal human hands covered in soft, tawny fur – clasped over the back of his neck. The fact that he had moved meant that he heard every word that Sebastian said, and even though Sebastian normally couldn’t care less, he felt like an ass.

Hybrids weren’t uncommon, but they weren’t really understood. No one could predict if a child in utero would be a hybrid. It happened in one out of every thousand or so births. Science hadn’t been able to find any genetic links to hybridism whatsoever. So, as is the nature of human beings, since hybrids weren’t understood, they were often feared. There was only one hybrid attending the private school that Sebastian went to, and even though he was a pretty cool guy (as far as Sebastian knew) no one really hung out with him.

Sebastian wondered how many friends this boy on his floor had. Probably not many if this horrible thing happened to him and he was hanging with the Smythes, considering Sebastian had never met this boy before in his life.

“Okay, okay, I’ll be right there,” Sebastian heard his mother say, and he knew that yes indeed they had reached the end of their discussion and no, he wouldn’t be going to his sleep over. The phone beeped and the call ended.

“Alright, Sebastian, I have to get going…”

“Big surprise,” Sebastian said, rolling his eyes.

His mother frowned at Sebastian, but his eyes stayed firmly fixed on the wall opposite so he didn’t have to see his mother’s displeasure.

“I have to meet your father and finalize some things…”

Her eyes drifted subconsciously into Sebastian’s bedroom, and he knew that whatever needed to be _finalized_ had to do with this hybrid-boy. She caught a glimpse of the boy curled on the floor in the corner. She sighed deeply, turning her eyes to glare at her son, pointing at the boy silently with an expression on her face that very clearly said _fix this_.

Sebastian huffed and shrugged. Why this boy was even his responsibility he had no idea. He was fourteen. What the hell did they expect him to do?

“Well, I’m going to leave you and Kurt alone while I go run some errands,” she said in an unnaturally raised voice so that the boy (Kurt? What kind of a name was Kurt?) could overhear without feeling the burden to respond. “You boys play nice.”

Sebastian and his mother watched the boy nod without turning his face to look at them. Sebastian’s mother shook her head.

“Poor thing,” she repeated, ruffling Sebastian’s hair in that way that she knew he hated, and then walked off down the hall.

There they were, together but separate, with Sebastian in the hallway and Kurt on the bedroom floor, pulling himself into a tighter ball, trying to look small and inconsequential.

Sebastian waited to see if Kurt would do anything else, and after a while he began to resent feeling like a stranger in his own room. He walked inside, taking heavy strides so as not to startle Kurt. He tossed off the blazer of his school uniform, letting it land on the floor in a heap, and jumped up onto his bed.

“Well, I just got back from school,” Sebastian said in that unnaturally loud voice that his mother used, “so I’m going to play some XBox until dinner.” He didn’t invite Kurt to play. With his friends, he wouldn’t have to. They’d already be scrabbling for the controllers and arguing over which game they wanted to play.

Kurt did none of those things. He lay completely quiet and still, so much so that Sebastian stared at his back for a long time in order to catch the rise and fall that would indicate that he was breathing.

He saw the swell along Kurt’s spine and relaxed, not realizing that he had been holding his breath while he waited.

“Okay,” Sebastian said, dismissing Kurt in favor of playing Assassin’s Creed. “I bet you don’t even play video games,” he continued under his breath. “You probably just play with yarn and toy mice…”

Sebastian chuckled, so he almost missed Kurt’s response.

“I play XBox.”

Sebastian raised his eyes slowly from the screen in front of him and turned to the furry lump in the corner that had started to unfurl. Kurt slowly sat up, watery eyes staring at the boy on the bed, his bushy tail tucked up between his legs, the end cradled against Kurt’s chest by his thin arms. Sebastian sat up along with him, mesmerized by the delicate cat-faced boy huddled in the corner – the boy with the most incredible sea blue eyes he had ever seen.

“You play, huh?” Sebastian asked, scooting over on the mattress, hoping that the boy might take the hint.

Kurt watched Sebastian move over and nodded, crawling in a graceful feline way up onto the bed.

“Yup,” Kurt said.

“What do you play?” Sebastian handed Kurt a controller.

“Uh…” Kurt ducked his head, looking slightly embarrassed, “I play Minecraft and Plants vs. Zombies…”

Sebastian made a _pfft_ sound, teasing Kurt for his game selection.

“Well, my dad doesn’t like violent games,” Kurt defended, but he rolled his eyes to show Sebastian that he didn’t share the same ideals as his dad.

“Too bad for him,” Sebastian said, starting the game, “because all I have here are violent games.”

Kurt chuckled, nervously picking at his tail as the opening scenes of the game began and the title screen came up.

They played quietly for a few moments before Kurt spoke again.

“I’m sorry they’re making me stay in your room,” he said, “and I’m sorry you’re missing your sleepover.”

A wave of guilt welled up in Sebastian’s chest, but he had no intention of letting Kurt know.

“It’s no biggie,” Sebastian said. “I can go over there next weekend, I guess.” Kurt bowed his head over his controller, seeing through Sebastian’s lie. Sebastian chewed the inside of his cheek as he watched Kurt’s face out of the corner of his eye. “Actually, my friend Sean snores,” Sebastian said, “like a lawn mower.”

Kurt giggled.

“Really?” he asked, lifting his head a little.

“Yeah,” Sebastian continued, encouraged by Kurt’s smile, “and my other friend Don, he farts in his sleep. Like, horrible.”

Kurt laughed out loud and Sebastian found himself wanting to hear more of it.

“It always wakes me up in the middle of the night because it’s really loud and it smells like something died.” Sebastian puffed up his cheeks and blew out a vulgar raspberry through tightly pursed lips, and Kurt lost it, dissolving into a laughing fit that was part high-pitched giggles and part cat-like mews. Sebastian felt his entire chest grow warm on the inside as Kurt’s eyes squinted shut and a tear rolled down his furred cheek.

“That’s disgusting,” Kurt gasped between chuckles.

“It is,” Sebastian agreed. “So, see, I’d much rather be here playing Assassin’s Creed with you.”

Kurt’s laughing died down as he looked into Sebastian’s face with questioning eyes.

“Yeah?” he asked.

Sebastian winked.

“Yeah,” he said, bumping Kurt with his shoulder. He heard Kurt’s breath catch at the touch and Sebastian froze, staring into clear, strangely hopeful eyes. Sebastian swallowed, his eyes returning quickly to the screen. “Now come on. We have ships to explore!”

They played in tense albeit companionable silence, cheering when they succeeded at a campaign, and urging each other on during the battles. Sebastian stole a glance at Kurt, his pointed pink tongue caught between his teeth as he concentrated on the melee they were thrown in the thick of. Something about the way Kurt kept his tongue trapped like that fascinated Sebastian, as did the sharp tips of short fangs indenting his lower lip. He suddenly worried that he might be staring, and knew for a fact he was when Kurt growled, “Come on, Sebastian! I’m getting mauled over here and your guy isn’t even moving!”

“Right, right,” Sebastian muttered, going back to the game. He tried to focus on beating the three guys surrounding him, but Sebastian didn’t want to go back to the silence from before. Sebastian wanted to know more about Kurt. He seemed like a cool kid, all things considered. “You know, I never said I’m sorry…”

“Sorry for what?”

“Sorry for being kind of rude earlier…” Sebastian began, treading carefully, “and for whatever happened that…you know…”

Kurt’s eyes drifted down to his controller and he sighed. He didn’t press the buttons or move the joystick. He just stared with a blank expression in his eyes. He seemed stuck in a thought, or a memory, but he couldn’t seem to move forward now that Sebastian had reminded him of it.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Sebastian asked, his voice soft in a way that even he hadn’t heard before.

Kurt fidgeted where he sat, running his index finger up along the outside of the controller in his hands.

“My dad and I live in Lima,” Kurt said, his tail twitching beside him, and then curling over his leg into his lap, “that’s about two hours from here.”

Sebastian nodded emphatically, as if the drive time between Lima and Westerville was pertinent information. He waited patiently for Kurt to continue.

“I go to public school…” Kurt spoke down to his controller. “My dad owns a tire shop.”

Kurt paused.

“What does your mom do?” Sebastian asked. It was an innocent enough question…at least so he thought.

Kurt’s head bowed lower.

“I don’t have a mom. She died when I was eight.”

“Oh,” Sebastian said, so quietly he thought maybe Kurt didn’t hear. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

Kurt didn’t look at Sebastian, but he shrugged.

“That’s alright. Like you said, you didn’t know.”

Kurt raised a hand to his cheek and brushed away a tear.

Sebastian saw another tear follow it, but Kurt didn’t move to wipe this one off his cheek.

Sebastian’s hand flexed, itching to reach out and do it for him.

“I just found out a few days ago that I got the lead in the school musical,” Kurt said, a small, wistful smile creeping onto his face.

Sebastian copied that smile, but wider.

“That’s great!” Sebastian clapped Kurt on the shoulder and shook him gently, trying to bring him out of his funk. “A lot of schools wouldn’t…”

Sebastian stopped short, afraid of sticking his foot in his mouth again, and Kurt rushed to fill in for him.

“Not a lot of schools would,” he agreed. “My school is trying to be more progressive, so they started with me.”

Sebastian still had his hand on Kurt’s shoulder. Since it seemed okay, he didn’t want to let go.

Sebastian’s smile dropped suddenly.

“But wait…” he said, “I’m confused. Isn’t getting the lead in the school musical a good thing?”

Kurt nodded before he spoke.

“I thought so,” he said. “Other people…not so much.”

Both boys went still. Sebastian wasn’t entirely sure what Kurt was getting at, but something in his chest started to hurt.

“What…what did they do?”

Kurt swallowed so hard Sebastian heard it, along with the tiny whimpers that followed as he bounced back and forth between trying to speak but also trying not to cry.

“They wrecked my dad’s shop,” Kurt said, his voice wavering as he started to lose his personal battle, “roughed him up a little.”

Sebastian sucked in a breath.

“Oh, Kurt,” he said.

“He’s alright,” Kurt hurried to say while he still had the strength, and to erase the sound of pity from Sebastian’s voice. “He’s in the hospital, for overnight observation and stuff. But I guess the guys who did it threatened me and now…”

Kurt lifted his head to meet Sebastian’s eyes, the rims wet with tears he didn’t want to let fall.

“Now what?”

Sebastian didn’t like to press Kurt, but he needed to know how this was going to end.

He wanted to know that Kurt would be alright.

“Now we move out here,” Kurt said. “Your parents are helping us find a house, and I think I’m going to your school now.”

Sebastian smiled, but Kurt didn’t smile back.

“That’s great!” Sebastian rallied on. “Dalton is an excellent school. You’ll love it there.” Sebastian wanted Kurt to be excited about going to his school. It had an exceptional arts program, a kick ass choir, and best of all, a no-tolerance bullying policy. Kurt would be safe, and he would have a great time there, once he gave it a chance.

But Kurt looked less than thrilled, and it seemed that the happier Sebastian looked, the sadder Kurt looked.

“What’s wrong?” Sebastian asked.

Kurt sniffled, his attempts at hold back his tears failing.

“I’m sure you go to a great school, Sebastian,” Kurt explained, “but I like _my_ school. I shouldn’t be forced to leave. It’s not…it’s not fair.”

Sebastian felt ashamed for being so happy, for thinking that going to Dalton was an equitable solution to Kurt’s problem. In actuality, there shouldn’t even be a problem. Kurt shouldn’t be threatened for something he can’t change or control. By all means, Kurt should go to the school he wants, and be in the school musical if he wants, and become the star quarterback or the Prom King, if these are things that he wants.

“I…” Sebastian felt like he should say something – something witty and smart that would make it all better, like in the end of those old 80s sitcoms on Nick at Night, where everyone’s problem is solved in thirty minutes. The bullies always see the error of their ways, the community comes together in support of the oppressed, and one sage person - the one everyone should have listened to all along - says one last line that ties the lesson all together.

Sebastian searched his head for such an inspirational line, but there was none, so all he said was, “That sucks!”

Kurt chuckled, sniffling again.

“I wish there was something I could do to make you feel better,” Sebastian admitted.

“There is,” Kurt said.

“Name it,” Sebastian said, “anything. Want to order a pizza – done. Want to slide down the bannisters – done. Need me to kill someone…” Sebastian removed his hand from Kurt’s shoulder, made it into a fist, and punched into his other hand, “just tell me who.”

Sebastian tried to look intimidating, but he couldn’t keep a straight face, and Kurt laughed.

“No,” Kurt said, rolling his eyes, “can we keep playing? It keeps my mind off it.”

“Yeah,” Sebastian said, “no problem.”

Sebastian restarted the game, readjusting himself on the bed. He didn’t know what possessed him, or why he thought he should, but right when the game started and the characters began to move, he darted over quickly and kissed Kurt on the cheek.

“Onward to glory!” Sebastian crowed to keep from turning back around and seeing Kurt’s reaction, which Kurt appreciated since he couldn’t stop blushing.

They played on for the next few hours, but this time they talked. Sebastian, still in his school uniform (which Kurt grimaced at, saying he found it parochial and bland), told Kurt all about Dalton – his favorite teachers, his favorite subjects, and the lacrosse team which he hoped to someday become captain of. Kurt told Sebastian about his high school, McKinley – about Glee club, the musical, and how last week his home ec partner almost burned down their station trying to make pâté.

Playing video games turned into ordering pizza, which turned into watching some lame sci-fi movie on pay-per-view, but as the night stretched on, it seemed like all the adults had forgotten about them. An exhausted Kurt and Sebastian lay side by side on Sebastian’s bed to finish talking while their eyes grew heavy and everything became funny as their sentences made less and less sense.

“Kurt,” Sebastian said to his new friend’s serene face and closed eyelids, “I know this all blows, you having to go to Dalton and everything, but I’m kind of glad, too.”

“Mmm,” Kurt said back, “I’m kind of glad, too. But only a little glad…and only because of you.”

“Good,” Sebastian said, letting his eyes drift shut.

There was a long silence. Sebastian was sure that Kurt was asleep, but then he murmured, “Sebastian?”

“Yeah, Kurt?”

“Are you going to kiss me again?”

Sebastian’s eyes opened. Kurt’s stayed shut, but he was smiling.

“Do you want me to?” Sebastian asked.

Sebastian waited with his eyes open.

“Mm-hmm,” Kurt said with a subtle nod.

Sebastian inched forward close enough to feel Kurt’s breath against his mouth, and the fur on Kurt’s body – incredibly soft and radiating heat – covering his skin.

Sebastian leaned in and kissed Kurt on the lips. It wasn’t anything too ambitious, but it was nice, and Sebastian left it at that.

“Good night, Kurt,” Sebastian whispered, but Kurt was already asleep. In seconds, Sebastian was, too.

When Lydia Smythe returned to her son’s room, she wasn’t too hopeful. The lights were switched off and the room completely dark. She cursed under her breath, sure she would find her son asleep in his comfortable bed while that poor boy was still camped out on the floor without even a blanket to cover him.

“Dammit, Sebastian,” she grumbled, “I told you to play…”

The word _nice_ never came out past her lips, lost behind her smile when she saw her son and Kurt lying in bed, face to face, with Sebastian’s arms linked in Kurt’s arms and Kurt’s tail wrapped around Sebastian’s waist.

She clapped her hands beneath her chin and backed slowly away.

“Promising,” she said, patting herself on the back as she skipped away, “very promising.”


	137. Never Have I Ever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt 'drunk'. Kurt is alone on Valentine's Day and calls for a male escort. He never expects Sebastian to show up at his door. The two decide to play Never Have I Ever. Eager to stump Sebastian, Kurt stumbles upon a secret Sebastian never intended to tell Kurt. AU. Angst. Future fic. Mention of past!Klaine. Warning for alcohol use.

Kurt watched Sebastian set up two shot glasses on the kitchen bar. He pulled a bottle of Cuervo Gold down from Kurt’s cabinet. He unscrewed the cap and filled both glasses to the top, then set the bottle aside on the counter with a thunk.

“Isn’t it kind of lame that we’re playing ‘Never Have I Ever’?” Kurt asked, circling the rim of his shot glass with the tip of his finger. “What, are we in high school or something?”

“Isn’t it lame that you called an escort for Valentine’s Day?” Sebastian smirked.

Kurt’s jaw dropped, but his own smirk returned full-force.

“Isn’t it lame that _you’re_ a male escort?” Kurt countered.

Sebastian, raising his shot to his lips, stopped and chuckled.

“Fair enough,” he said, and then downed the shot quickly, grimacing as the bitter liquid dried his mouth and burned his throat.

“Hey,” Kurt said, watching Sebastian refill his glass. “We haven’t started playing yet!”

“I figured I’d get a head start,” Sebastian said. “You look like a light weight.”

Kurt pulled a face, mimicking Sebastian by mouthing his words.

“Here, I’ll give you an easy one, princess. Let you catch up.” Sebastian raised his glass and said with a sly grin, “Never have I ever fucked Blaine Anderson.”

Kurt watched Sebastian for a second, eyes growing wide as he moved the glass to his lips, but then he smiled, and put his full glass back down. Kurt frowned, downing his shot with a single snap of his head.

“That was a low blow, Smythe,” Kurt groaned,

“That’s what I’m here for.” Sebastian winked. “Your turn.”

Kurt refilled his own glass, trying to come up with something that might shock even Sebastian Smythe. He looked into Sebastian’s green eyes.

“Never have I ever…had a foursome.”

Without batting an eyelash, Sebastian drank the shot.

“Ugh,” Kurt commented. “You whore.”

Sebastian’s blank expression shifted for just a second at Kurt’s words, but his unimpressed demeanor stayed firmly cemented in place.

“All part of the job,” he said, refilling his glass. “Never have I ever worn women’s clothes.”

Sebastian’s Cheshire cat grin returned when Kurt took his shot.

“Fashion has no gender,” Kurt muttered petulantly. He thought harder, pouring the gold liquid slower to give himself more time. He knew that the real goal of the game was to get the other person drunk first while learning their deepest secrets, but that wasn’t good enough for Kurt. He wanted to stump Sebastian. Find the one thing he hadn’t done, hadn’t even thought of doing. Kurt smiled a loopy grin at the one thing he thought Sebastian would balk at.

Kurt giggled, the effects of the tequila taking hold.

 _Fucking bastard was right_ , Kurt thought.

“Never have I ever…” Kurt drawled, drawing out the next few words, “wanted to make love to Kurt Hummel.”

That wasn’t what he meant to say. He meant to say kiss. At any rate, he wouldn’t have used the words ‘make love’ if he was in his right mind.

Sebastian blinked down at his tequila, but then lifted it to his lips and drank it, lowering the glass to the counter and flipping it over.

“There,” Sebastian said flatly. “You win.”

Kurt sobered up immediately.

“Wait…what?” Kurt watched Sebastian cap the bottle of tequila and return it to its cabinet. “What…you can’t…”

“Yeah,” Sebastian said. “Yeah, I did. So what?”

“Did…as in…not anymore?” Kurt didn’t understand why he felt jilted.

“I…look, it’s late…”

“I don’t believe you,” Kurt interrupted quickly.

“What?”

“I don’t believe you,” he repeated. “If you want to make love to me, prove it.”

Sebastian chuckled, the sound more sad than sardonic.

“You’re drunk,” Sebastian said. “You’re lonely. And I’m no one’s consolation prize.”

Kurt watched Sebastian pick up his coat, and his heart pounded, trying to think of something that would make Sebastian stay.

“I…I paid you for tonight,” he said lamely. Kurt cringed when the words left his mouth, but the tequila had made him tactless and stupid. He could have no more stopped those words from coming out of his mouth than he could have changed the weather.

Sebastian reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a thin slip of paper. He ripped it in half and put it down on the counter. Kurt’s eyes focused and recognized it as the check he had written earlier that night.

“I’m not going to be your whore.”

Sebastian intended to leave a shocked Kurt where he stood, but he stopped. He turned and looked Kurt in the face, surprised to see a glimmer of something that looked like disappointment. He dropped his coat on the bar stool beside him and closed in on Kurt. He wrapped an arm around Kurt’s waist and threaded a hand through his hair. With one meaningful gaze in Kurt’s astonished blue eyes, Sebastian kissed him soundly, breathing Kurt in for all he was worth. He curled his fingers around Kurt’s hair, and scratched his nails lightly over the small of his back. Kurt whimpered, opening his lips just enough to let Sebastian slip his tongue through. Kurt melted at the feel of Sebastian’s tongue caressing his own, and for a moment, he held his breath.

Sebastian pulled away too quickly, leaning his forehead against Kurt’s, warring with himself over what to do next.

“Tomorrow night, if you still want me, you know how to get a hold of me.”

Sebastian left a light peck on Kurt’s lips. He picked up his coat and walked out of Kurt’s apartment before he could change his mind.


	138. Never Could I Believe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a follow up to 'Never Have I Ever'; the one shot for the prompt drunk where Kurt calls a male escort on Valentine's Day and ends up with Sebastian Smythe. This one-shot takes place the next day when Kurt takes up Sebastian on his offer to go out for a drink.

Kurt stared with bleary eyes at his phone, the number on the screen shifting in and out of focus intermittently, adding to his almost blinding headache. It took Kurt a few minutes to gather his thoughts after Sebastian had kissed him and left. He didn’t know why, but the moment the door shut behind him Kurt felt alone…no, not just alone, painfully bereft, like the dawn of something new and exciting had gone, leaving him to wallow once again in the mire of his life as it stood thus far.

The worst part was he had let him go without an argument. Just stood stupidly and watched him walk away.

Sebastian left so many unanswered questions. They all swam around in Kurt’s brain and that, mixed with way too much tequila, made his head pound like a badly executed timpani solo. It forced him to retreat into the cool, dark, soothing cave of his bedroom. Kurt climbed beneath his comforter, intent on letting the wash of inebriation drag him under and drown him for the night, but no matter how hard he tried to simply relax into unconsciousness he couldn’t help thinking about that kiss.

Sebastian’s lips claimed his. There was nothing chaste or sweet about it. It was hungry, desperate, almost proving a point.

And that revelation - he had wanted to make love to Kurt? When was that exactly? When he was drooling over Blaine, making moves to steal him away, or when he was planning to throw a rock salt filled Slushie in his face? Or how about all of that time when they barely spoke a word to each other? When exactly in the midst of all this was Sebastian pining over him?

He should just let it lie he told himself. Things were just fine before tonight, before Sebastian Smythe showed up and threw a wrench into Kurt’s perfectly ordered loneliness. The wounds Blaine left behind were barely scarred over. Was he really going to let someone come into his life and tear those wounds open again?

Kurt hedged, typing out a message and then erasing it again, deciding again to take the initiative and suss out the bullshit in Sebastian’s great admission of unrequited desire, then canceling it in favor of leaving well-enough alone. Exhaustion tugged on his eyelids, forcing them shut, and Kurt let them, holding his phone in his hand, his thumb still paused above the send button on the touch screen. With barely anything else running through his mind making any kind of sense, he told himself that a relationship with Sebastian Smythe was just asking for trouble. It would end in heartbreak even before it began. He was sure of it. So he curled around his pillow, unable to find the strength to do much more than abandon all thoughts of Sebastian until a later date yet to be determined. He drifted off to sleep, adjusting his arms beneath his pillow to keep his head elevated, tightening his grip on his phone, and accidentally pressing the send button.

When Kurt woke nearly eight hours later, his phone was vibrating gently in his hand. He pulled it out from under the pillow, the screen glowing astronomically bright to his squinting, photophobic eyes. Again his head throbbed, but he honed in on the words dancing in and out of his view, and his heart leapt into his throat.

_From: Sebastian_

_‘Eight o’clock at Whiskey Park. Gotcha. It’s a date.’_

Kurt groaned, and then winced when the sound echoed in his head like a loud, hollow bell.

Why did he have to say ‘date’?

* * *

 

Sebastian was already there; already waiting at a low, wooden table when Kurt walked into the bar. Their eyes met and to Kurt’s surprise Sebastian stood, offering him a hand and helping him into his seat.

“When did you turn into such a gentleman?” Kurt infused his voice with all the embitterment built up over the years of teasing, taunting, and scheming, but to his own dismay he sounded more intrigued…if not even just a little enchanted.

“Never,” Sebastian said, quirking an eyebrow. He pushed Kurt’s seat in and then returned to his own. “But I didn’t really give you your money’s worth the other night, so I thought I could make up for it.”

“Well, if you remember, you gave me my money back,” Kurt said flatly. “Besides, I thought this was a date.”

“It is,” Sebastian agreed with a nod. “I ordered you a club soda, by the way.”

Sebastian slid the drink over to Kurt with a smirk, knowing that the extremely bland soda acted as a silent jab towards his all too quick intoxication of the night before.

“Thanks,” Kurt said, decidedly ignoring the drink with a roll of his eyes, sweeping them over the traditional, old school, 1950s men’s club atmosphere of the lounge where they sat. “This is an…interesting place. Do you meet many clients here?”

“If you can consider my dad a client,” Sebastian scoffed, his tight smile obscured by his tumbler when he took a sip of his whiskey. “This is where I used to meet him for drinks every Saturday night.”

Kurt nodded, wondering why the past tense. As far as Kurt knew Sebastian’s father was still alive. He didn’t know much about Sebastian’s relationship with his father. In fact, Kurt didn’t know much of anything about Sebastian, but he was surprised to realize how very much he wanted to learn, starting with his current mode of employment.

“So, what happened to Sebastian Smythe’s rumored gigantic…uh…trust fund?” Kurt jumped in with both feet, not content to pussy foot around with false pleasantries.

“Excuse me?” Sebastian sputtered around the sip he was currently choking on.

“Did your dad disown you or something?” Kurt rephrased. “I mean, why the job?”

“Wow, you don’t beat around the bush, do you, Hummel?” Sebastian dabbed at his mouth and the front of his shirt with a napkin. He scowled slightly at the liquid which threatened to stain, but he couldn’t help sounding impressed by Kurt’s straightforwardness. His eyes fell on Kurt’s glass of club soda. Kurt pushed the glass towards him.

“Be my guest,” Kurt offered, watching Sebastian saturate his napkin and press the wet cloth to the spreading stain. Sebastian seemed unnecessarily focused on his task, and Kurt suspected he was searching for the right way to answer the question.

“I wasn’t like you in high school, Kurt,” Sebastian started off uneasily, not looking up to meet Kurt’s eyes even when he folded his napkin and placed it back on the table.

“Yeah, I know,” Kurt grumbled, “and every opportunity you had you rubbed my ‘gay’ face in it.” Kurt raised his hands and made air-quotes for emphasis, referring to the jeer Sebastian had made when Kurt told him to lay off of Blaine all those years ago back at the Lima Bean.

Sebastian sighed. This wasn’t starting out well.

“No, I mean…I didn’t have friends like you did.” Sebastian rested his hands around his glass, dragging his fingers through the condensation as a means to distract himself from his own words. “I didn’t have anyone I could consider close…like a family.”

Sebastian’s eyes flicked up quickly, as if he expected Kurt to garner an ultimate answer from just those few clues. Kurt shrugged.

“I don’t get it,” he admitted. “What about the Warblers? And Dalton? Blaine said you were super popular there. Weren’t you captain of the lacrosse team or something?”

“Yeah, but, there wasn’t anyone I was really close to.” Sebastian stirred the ice in his glass with his index finger. “I mean, the whole time I was a member of the Warblers, all I heard was how great you and Blaine were, and how much they missed you. It didn’t matter how hard I worked really, I was just standing in your guys’ shadow.”

Kurt narrowed his eyes skeptically as Sebastian spoke. It sounded too much like something the old Sebastian would have said to manipulate him, to make him think he was the good guy and then turn around and prove him wrong. But what did he have to gain by lying to Kurt? In the past, Blaine seemed like the likely prize. Kurt couldn’t imagine that Sebastian would want in his pants enough to lie to him to this extent. After all, he was an escort for Christ’s sake.

“And I wasn’t all that close to the guys on the lacrosse team,” he continued. “They were pretty much out for themselves.”

Silence greeted Kurt once again, another expectant pause as if Sebastian was pulling him down a seemingly obvious path by his teeth.

Sebastian’s green eyes finally met Kurt’s, the sincerity in their depths startling him. It transformed his whole face, made him seem new, different, like Kurt was meeting him for the first time but without that annoying aura of superiority that seemed to travel everywhere with him. Here in this bar he was just Sebastian, a man Kurt’s age who could have been his friend if things had been different; if they had been different.

“I wanted to be like you guys,” Sebastian admitted.

“Fabulously well-dressed?” Kurt joked.

“Disgustingly in love,” Sebastian countered with a cheeky grin.

“You wanted Blaine,” Kurt stated to squash all argument, finally finding his bitterness.

“I wanted what Blaine _had_ ,” Sebastian corrected, leaning forward over the table.

“What was that exactly?” Kurt started opening the wounds himself, to finally let Sebastian see the raw and jagged edges of his pain, some of which _he_ had caused. “Talent? Popularity? Friends?”

“Yeah, somewhat,” Sebastian swallowed back a few choice words he wasn’t too sure about.

“What else was there?” Kurt huffed in frustration. “His questionable taste in sunglasses and his gel-helmet hair?”

Sebastian rolled his head on his neck, staring at the ceiling, muttering under his breath.

“Please don’t make me say it,” Kurt heard him mumble. Sebastian balled his hands into fists and pounded the table gently, letting out a long breath.

“He had _you_ , Kurt.”

Kurt let himself feel shocked for only a second before he became furious.

“And how does that work?” Kurt asked. “When you spent all your time tormenting me and flirting with Blaine, trying to pull us apart?”

“I didn’t want Blaine,” Sebastian growled, trying to keep his temper. “I didn’t want him to have you.”

“But if you broke us up, I wouldn’t have gone out with you anyway!” Kurt said, being the one to lose his temper first, a little confused as to what this all had to do with Sebastian having once wanted him, or becoming a male escort.

“It didn’t matter anyway since you would have never given me a chance,” Sebastian concluded. “Even if I was the nicest, sweetest, most charming guy in the world; even if I put the incredible Blaine Anderson to shame.”

Kurt shook his head and looked down at his shoes. Silently he denied it although deep inside he knew it was the truth.

Kurt had labored under the illusion that he and Blaine were soulmates for so long; even going so far as to believe that maybe, just maybe, he was divinely favored. It had given him faith for the first time in his life that something larger, some greater purpose, might actually exist out there in the universe.

That’s why Blaine’s betrayal had been so devastating.

“None of this explains why you became a male escort,” Kurt pointed out.

“I never fell in love like you did,” Sebastian said, fidgeting with his glass again. “I never really had a serious boyfriend.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.” Kurt watched Sebastian scrupulously, waiting for one of his signature barbs about Kurt’s relationship with his ex, but it never came.

“ _You_ can say that,” Sebastian answered quietly. “You had it at least.”

Kurt bit his lip. It never dawned on him that Sebastian might want to fall in love, that having a first love might mean something to him.

“I took this job,” Sebastian continued, “because I thought I could capture a little bit of that, but what I do…it’s just empty.”

Kurt heard a high-pitched chirp, and both men reached in their pockets for their phones.

“It’s mine,” Sebastian said, wiggling his phone in the air. He looked at the screen and frowned.

“Would you be pissed if we cut tonight short?” Sebastian asked without looking up from his screen.

“Why?” Kurt asked agog. “Is that work? Are you seriously telling me you’re going to cut our date short so you can go fuck someone else?”

Sebastian’s mouth dropped.

“Uh…”

“Sebastian…” Kurt placed his hands firmly on the table in front of him and stared, stared until his own pain was visible on his face, stared until it became almost uncomfortable for Sebastian to look at him, “…why am I here?”

“Because you asked me out.” Sebastian tried to recapture some of his sass, but the effort was weak.

“You said you wanted me. You dropped that little nugget of information on me last night, and then you left. You _kissed_ me like you needed me, and you left. Why? Why even tell me? Do you even want to try having a relationship with me, or is this just another stupid game?”

Sebastian at least had the decency to look properly ashamed.

“I did,” he said. “I do. I would, it’s just…”

“Just what?”

“Kurt…” Sebastian couldn’t meet Kurt’s gaze this time, “you become addicted to empty when it’s all you’ve ever had. What if we don’t work out?”

“You’re such a fucking hypocrite,” Kurt laughed cruelly, pushing away from the table and standing. “You tell me you turned into _this_ because I would have never given you a chance, and now you won’t give _me_ one.”

Kurt had half expected it, but he didn’t think it would bother him so much. He didn’t really assume that he would start a relationship with Sebastian tonight, but now he felt like he was losing his only chance at one.

“If you’re really serious about wanting to give this a shot…about wanting to give us a shot, then I can’t be worried about competing with nameless, faceless strangers. I don’t want dates together and evenings alone to end like this.” Kurt gestured vaguely around them. “I need to be your one and only.”

The blank look on Sebastian’s face wasn’t too encouraging.

Kurt sighed. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. Sebastian watched as Kurt pulled out a bill and placed it on the table beside his cup overflowing with club soda now that the ice had melted.

“Thanks for meeting me,” Kurt said, staring down at his shoes to avoid looking at Sebastian’s vacant expression. Kurt paused, hopeful, bordering on sitting back down and trying again, but he realized that Sebastian wasn’t going to make a move to stop him,  so he turned and left.

Sebastian watched Kurt push past a few other patrons and walk out the door.

He watched Kurt leave, and he didn’t do a thing to stop him.

* * *

 

Kurt felt stupid. Monumentally stupid. He didn’t know what exactly he expected from Sebastian Smythe. A dozen red roses? An admission of undying love? Another deep, long awaited, toe-curling kiss?

Those over the top expressions of love were Blaine’s forte, but Sebastian wasn’t Blaine.

And there was a reason Kurt and Blaine didn’t last.

Sebastian’s passionate admission that he’d wanted to make love to Kurt the night before was worth all of Blaine’s showy, over-the-top proposals.

But that didn’t mean that Kurt and Sebastian had a shot simply because Sebastian wasn’t Blaine.

Sebastian was his own special type of asshole, and Kurt was better off without him.

Right?

Maybe, but Kurt was tired of being alone. He had allowed himself to imagine himself in a relationship with Sebastian, and the more he thought about it, the more he wanted it; not just to fill a hole that he had left gaping for so long. He wanted to know Sebastian on a deeper level than just superficial taunts and jabs. He had pictured him and Sebastian together, learning to know each other, discussing their secrets, finding out the things they had in common, because a secret part of him had always wondered how things might have been different if he had met Sebastian the time he went to spy at Dalton instead of Blaine.

Kurt heard a knock on the door and he hurried to open it. He had called Chandler on the way back to his apartment and asked him to come over to help him polish off the rest of the tequila and a cheesecake he made earlier. Kurt had run into Chandler in Manhattan shortly after his fiasco break-up with Blaine, and after reassuring Kurt that there were no hard feelings they were able to pick up again as friends, pretty much right where they left off. Chandler was still an incurable, cheesy flirt who couldn’t live without his phone which meant Kurt got a text from him at least 32 times a day. They were uplifting and sweet little messages that made the thought of growing old and dying a spinster not so bad if the two of them could manage to live in the same aging artists’ retirement home, sipping mint juleps in side by side rocking chairs on the front porch, surrounded by their 17 cats, all named Brian.

Kurt groaned. Man but he put way too much thought into how he was going to spend his golden years.

Kurt threw the door open wide and was greeted by a bouquet of white roses. For the briefest second it was a daunting flashback to that fateful day when Blaine showed up on his doorstep out of the blue with a dozen red roses covering his smiling face only to admit later on that he had cheated. He grimaced. Chandler knew about that, but he probably didn’t remember. Kurt would forgive him.

“They’re beautiful,” Kurt said gratefully, taking the bouquet in his arms. He held them to his nose and sniffed them appreciatively, smiling as he glanced up into his best friend’s eyes.

Except it wasn’t Chandler at his doorstep.

It was Sebastian.

“I’m sorry there are only eleven instead of twelve,” Sebastian started as if Kurt had asked. “I ran into your friend in the hall. I sort of paid him off with one to get him to go away.”

Kurt would have to double check that story with Chandler later and find out how Sebastian actually convinced him to leave. Ever since his painful breakup, Chandler has been very protective of Kurt, and he’s also a queen diva bitch in his own right. One white rose wouldn’t have been enough to shoo him away.

“Why are you here?” Kurt asked, letting his eyes drift back to the white petals of the fragrant flowers. They were so clean, so unblemished. Kurt had never seen such perfect roses before in his life. He couldn’t think of which upscale florist in the city would be open at this hour that would have roses as immaculate as these. “I thought you had to work.”

“About that,” Sebastian inched closer, and Kurt felt an arm snake around his waist, low along his hips, drawing them close with the bouquet between them. “I just stopped by to see how you would feel about starting tonight over, except instead of going out on a date with a male escort, maybe you might consider just staying in with this unemployed bastard.”

Kurt felt his heart stutter in his chest. He didn’t want his whole face to light up when he started to smile, but there were just some things outside of his control.

“I think,” Kurt said, extricating the bouquet from between their bodies and setting it on a small table by his front door, “that sounds like something I can do.”

Sebastian smiled, wide and wolfish, and Kurt felt his body come alive, washing with heat when those devilish lips claimed his again, Sebastian’s arms tightening around him and lifting him off the ground, never stopping even when he walked Kurt inside his apartment and shut the door behind them.

 


	139. Ninety-Six Days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a one-shot inspired by a personal experience, and has elements of the Glee episode ‘Bash’ in it (just the fact that Kurt was beaten, and some non-graphic description of his injuries).
> 
> Kurt is a singer at a nightclub intrigued by one particular man who comes every night to see him sing.
> 
> Futurefic AU, angst. Warning for language, drinking, smoking, vague mention of underage drug use, and mention of sex.

Kurt climbs the steps to the stage and peers out past the bright lights as he approaches the mic. He scans the audience through a haze of questionable smelling smoke and spots him. He’s always there, sitting at the bar in the back of the room, arriving right as Kurt steps on stage to perform. It’s hard not to notice him in his three-piece suit and his cashmere coat. Kurt speculates that the entire ensemble costs more than the monthly rent in his shithole apartment. Besides, the club where Kurt sings, The Septic Tank, is not what most white-collar people would consider a cozy spot to duck in during Happy Hour for an evening martini. The multitude of leather clad, pierced, and highly tattooed clientele are mostly teenagers who look like they spend most of their time in the mosh pit at a Slip Knot concert; a throng of bitter, angry kids who bought fake i.d.’s the second they turned fifteen. Kurt - tequila drinking, clove smoking Kurt - with his purple dyed hair and his ripped thrift store jeans is every inch of his tattooed skin and his pierced ears one of their kind.

Despite a seven-year age difference they come to The Septic Tank in droves to hear him sing; his high, clear voice belting out darker versions of older torch songs; bluesy angst-ridden melodies about love, loss, and regret. He imagines that has to be the reason Captain CEO comes to the club since he turns away every advance from the young, scantily dressed men and women that approach him, and he drinks only club soda with lime.

The first time Kurt saw him it unnerved him a little – the intensity of his stare watching Kurt’s every move, mouthing the words to the songs when he sings, not taking a sip of his drink until Kurt takes a break during his set. Every night after was more of the same but with each passing night a seed of a memory planted itself in Kurt’s brain. It wasn’t something obvious, not something Kurt could even recall when he tried. It was more like some faded emotion that springs to life whenever he looks into that stranger’s eyes, which is why Kurt seeks him out the moment he steps onto the stage.

Kurt doesn’t know exactly what will happen when this man tires of him and stops showing up. The bloom fighting to grow will most likely shrivel into nothing and Kurt hasn’t decided yet how he feels about that. Kurt can’t help the feeling that this man knows something that _he_ should know, and he longs to pick his brain and find out what it is. The thought overwhelms him, entrances him until he’s singing only to this man, and when his set is through he doesn’t even remember what note he started on or what song he sang right before the end. He prays he didn’t royally fuck up without knowing it.

Kurt bows and smiles, the audience clapping and cheering for him, genuinely clapping and cheering which always fills him with an indescribable joy, but his attention turns back to the man sipping his club soda and Kurt’s eyes become hard. As much as he enjoys the fantasy of a man with expensive tastes who can have anything or anyone he wants coming around just to see him, he can’t afford this kind of distraction. Sure, he’s singing at a dive for less than he makes bagging groceries at the supermarket, but who knows? Someday the right person might walk through the door – the owner of a record label or a music producer looking for new, unappreciated talent. Of course they would more than likely walk into The Septic Tank because their car broke down and they were desperate to use the bathroom, but they would stay because of _him_. So he can’t mess up again.

Kurt needs to talk to this guy and find out what it is about him that keeps him coming around.

He steps off the stage, high fiving those fans that huddle close to the edge to say hi to him and tell him how much they love his voice. He grins and nods appreciatively with one eye trained on the man in the cashmere coat finally ordering a real drink. As soon as he can break away he makes a beeline for the bar and hops onto the closest empty bar stool, staring at the man fearlessly.

The stranger smiles and pushes the shot he ordered Kurt’s way.

“Nice to see you again, darling,” the man mutters, his smile weak, his face etched with lines of exhaustion.

“Why do you stare at me like that when I’m on stage?” Kurt says, deciding to cut to the chase and be done with the mystery, regardless of the way his heart seems to want to go out to this man in his tired state.

The man yawns and shakes his head.

“Excuse me,” the man says. “It’s been a long day.”

Kurt nods, surprised to find out that he actually cares that the burdens of life are affecting him.

“I stare at you because I’m in love with you,” the man says in a dry, flat way that doesn’t indicate insincerity, but tedium, as if he’s repeated the same thing over and over and over before.

“How can you be in love with me?” Kurt scoffs. “You don’t even know me.”

“Yes, I do,” the man says in the same dry tone.

“But I don’t know you,” Kurt argues.

“Yes, you do,” the man says. “My name is Sebastian.” He yawns again, hiding his mouth behind the back of his hand. Kurt narrows his eyelids and watches him. The name Sebastian rings a distant bell but Kurt isn’t prepared to fess up to it yet.

“Outside of this club, I’ve never seen you before.”

“Yes, you have,” Sebastian says, and Kurt rolls his eyes, grunting at the monotony of his answers. Sebastian reaches into his coat and pulls out a thin envelope.

“I’ve never spoken to you before,” Kurt insists, frowning in confusion at the envelope Sebastian tries to hand to him.

“Yes, you have.” Sebastian thrusts the envelope into Kurt’s hand when he doesn’t take it. “The first night we met here at this bar, we talked for a few hours and then we went to your apartment.”

“That’s right,” the bartender chimes in, passing by and grabbing a bottle of vodka. “You did.”

Kurt’s eyes knit together as he considers the envelope in his hands, and then his mouth drops.

“If you went to my apartment,” Kurt says slowly, “did we…”

“Fuck?” Sebastian finishes, leaning closer to Kurt. “Many, many times.”

Kurt shifts back on his stool, gasping in offense.

“If we…”

“Five total,” Sebastian says, answering the question that hasn’t even passed Kurt’s lips. “A small flock of blackbirds on your left shoulder, the opening strain to _Mr. Cellophane_ down your right side, the name Elizabeth on your inside left ankle, a pair of crossed sai swords on your inside right thigh, and a lotus flower on your ass.” Sebastian leans further forward to close the gap between them again. “And I’ve licked every single one of them,” he whispers. “You seem to favor having the swords licked the most.”

Kurt sneers at Sebastian’s smug, haughty expression.

“Are you always this fucking annoying?” Kurt says, sitting upright when Sebastian moves back. He picks up the shot and downs it with a single snap of his head, figuring he might need it to finish out this conversation.

“You always thought so.” Sebastian watches Kurt turn the envelope over and over in his hands. Sebastian sighs and grabs it, tearing it open at one end and pulling out the letter inside, sliding it onto the bar beside Kurt’s empty shot glass.

“You printed up a hundred of these letters,” Sebastian explains, “and I’ve given you one every evening since.”

 “How many have you given me?” Kurt asks, staring down at the letter with a skeptical, side-long glare.

“This is number ninety-six,” Sebastian says, the smirk fading away, his voice thick and heavy.

Kurt looks back up at Sebastian when hears the change; the clouded expression in Sebastian’s eyes filling Kurt with guilt and an impetus to read the letter, almost like he owes the poor man for sitting through his set when he is clearly dead on his feet. Kurt picks up the letter and unfolds it, chuckling at the salutation.

_Dear Me (Kurt);_

Above the opening paragraph is printed a digital photograph of Kurt and Sebastian naked in bed together, wound around each other, smiling and laughing for the camera. Kurt doesn’t read the letter right away, taking a moment to examine the picture in detail, noting first the small dark wood table by the bedside and the cream-colored sheets with the peony print. The picture was taken at his apartment. They’re lying in Kurt’s bed. Then his eyes move over the image of Sebastian, his walnut-colored hair mussed, his cheeks flushed, his muscular, tan arms holding Kurt tight against him. Kurt swallows hard trying to recall the memory of taking this picture.

He can’t.

_I am writing you this letter to clue you in on a couple of things. Firstly, I am you. A few months ago you saw two men beating up another man in a back alley. You stepped in and stopped the fight. The victim got away, but unfortunately you were beaten pretty badly._

Beneath these lines is a picture of Kurt’s face, his eyes closed, most likely taken while he slept. Cuts and bruises littered his skin, his lip split, and a tube positioned beneath his nose to help him breath. The letter trembles slightly in Kurt’s shaking hand. He looks away for a moment and notices his shot glass is now full again. He throws back the shot quickly to steady his nerves.

_While you were in the hospital they discovered you had suffered some memory loss. It was oddly intermittent. Some days you would forget about being beaten up. Some days you would forget about being out of high school. Some days you forgot the names and faces of all the people who loved you. On the day you were finally released, you left the hospital alone without a word to anyone._

Kurt re-reads that last paragraph a few times, each time taking a divot out of his heart. Most mornings when he wakes up he feels so alone he wants to shatter into a million pieces. He has no home, no childhood memories, no one who loves him to call his own. He always wondered why. He had a wallet and a license and a few odd credit cards. That helped him get his start, but outside of that things got a little fuzzy; blurry images of faces and voices that drifted in and out of his mind in whispers, but nothing concrete that he could hold on to.

It sounds a little too fantastical to be true. The scope of his memory seems to cut off at the moment he leaves the bar, and picks up again when he wakes up in the morning. If Sebastian isn’t lying, then they were together last night; but try as he might Kurt doesn’t remember a moment of it.  

Looking back up at the photo of the two of them in bed he wishes he had.

_It took over a month before a friend of yours tracked you down and told Sebastian where you were, bagging groceries at the Westside Market on 7 th Avenue, and every night he comes to see you sing in an attempt to help jog your memory._

That’s where the letter cuts off. Kurt starts to flip to the next page, but Sebastian stops him.

“Not yet,” he says.

Kurt looks at Sebastian, slightly annoyed by the sudden stop.

“Where’s the rest of it?” Kurt asks.

“That’s as far as you got before we went for round two,” Sebastian says, pointing to the picture at the top of the page.

“Well, what would the rest of it have said?” Kurt asks, feeling the start of tears in his eyes. “If this is true, how come I’ve never been to your apartment? Why haven’t you taken me home?”

“I have.”

“Then how come I wake up every morning in my own bed alone?” Kurt’s voice cracks, his fingers strangling the letter in his hand.

Sebastian’s shoulders slump.

“Sometimes you remember more,” Sebastian starts softly. “Some days you remember nothing. Some days I need the letters to lure you to come home with me. Sometimes I don’t…” Sebastian smiles sadly. “But no matter what happens the night before, every morning you wake up a clean slate. You remember everything from the time you left the hospital, but you don’t remember me. The few times you stayed with me, or I stayed with you…” Sebastian shakes his head. “It didn’t end well.”

Kurt stops shaking, trying to imagine how difficult this must be on Sebastian if indeed this is all true.

“So, what,” Kurt forces past the sobs stuck in his throat, “we’ve been dating this whole time and I don’t remember?”

Sebastian laughs, a stunted sound, empty and humorless.

“No,” he says, reaching over and flipping to the final page of the letter. Kurt looks over the copy of another picture of the two of them. He brings it closer to his face to get a better look. Even without the purple hair the man standing beside Sebastian bears too great a resemblance to Kurt to be anyone else. Kurt examines the edge of the image but he can tell it’s not photoshopped. He’s usually pretty good at spotting a fake. The document underneath though…it had to be genuine. The photocopier picked up the watermark and the signature behind it is definitely his.

Sebastian catches the letter when it slips from Kurt’s fingers.

“We’ve been married for four years, Kurt.” Sebastian refolds the letter and sticks it beside another one in his pocket. “You’re my husband.”


	140. The Ninety-Seventh Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here is a follow-up to the story 'Ninety-Six Days', right after Sebastian tells Kurt the truth about who he really is. Rated M for language and sexual situations. Warnings for mention of underage smoking and symptoms of anxiety.

“Ninety-six days,” Kurt mutters in disbelief, staring down at his hands that have started shaking again. “That’s…that’s more than three months.” Kurt swallows, flexing his fingers, balling his hands into fists, squeezing them tighter and tighter. “That’s a long time.”

“It is,” Sebastian agrees for lack of anything better to say.

“And you’re my husband?” Kurt says. “How?”

“Well, we got married,” Sebastian drawls sarcastically. “There was a ceremony, we exchanged rings, that’s kind of how you become a husband.”

“No, I mean, when did we meet? Where? Was it love at first sight?” Kurt looks at the smirk on Sebastian’s face and frowns. “Something tells me probably not.”

“Nice.” Sebastian rolls his eyes, but his clenched jaw melts into a more relaxed smile. “No, it wasn’t exactly what you would call ‘love at first sight’.”

Kurt raises an eyebrow, hoping Sebastian will explain, but Sebastian shakes his head.

“Look,” Sebastian says, the smile fading again, “excuse me if I don’t rush to divulge the entire story of our life together, but I’ve repeated it over and over and it doesn’t seem to trigger any memories, so I thought tonight we could try something new.”

Kurt doesn’t respond right away; the concept of ‘something new’ with regard to regaining his memories meaning little to him.

“What do we usually do?” Kurt asks.

“Well…” Sebastian runs a hand through his hair, leaning his elbow against the bar and cradling his head in his hand, “…we get in my car, drive to my penthouse uptown, and I tell you the story of our fantastic romance from beginning to end…” The way Sebastian says ‘fantastic romance’ – the sarcastic, bitter, strained tone of his voice – makes Kurt chuckle. “Then we call your dad and your stepmom…”

Kurt gasps. Finding out he has a husband is confusing and strange enough, but his father? As many times as he had imagined his parents it never occurred to him that they might still be alive somewhere, waiting for him to return. Kurt’s lip quivers, a tiny movement but even in the dark bar Sebastian catches it. He slides off his bar stool, closing the short distance between them, giving Kurt the chance to stop him or pull away. Sebastian wraps one arm around him and then the other, and then all at once Kurt dissolves into his arms.

“Shhh,” Sebastian soothes, “it’s alright. I’m sorry. I’m blurting things out and…”

“No,” Kurt mumbles through tears, “no, it’s okay, but maybe for now we can not talk about…about my dad.” The word almost doesn’t come out, caught somewhere between a sniffle and a sob. Sebastian nods; Kurt feels it against his neck. Sebastian’s skin brushes against his neck and it’s amazing; comforting and familiar. It unlocks something inside Kurt’s head. Images don’t come back to him completely. They spark in flashes of fleeting thoughts; split second revelations drowned out by too much noise or too much light, obscuring the important details and leaving a soupçon behind.

A whiff of cologne.

The touch of fingertips.

A feather-light kiss, somewhere along his temple.

His hand on a shoulder covered in black fabric. A tuxedo maybe? The tingling sensation firing in his fingertips is smooth and rich.

_Are you alright?_

A chuckle - nervous when he shouldn’t be.

_Of course I’m alright. Why wouldn’t I be alright?_

_Well, it’s kind of our wedding night. Are you nervous?_

Another chuckle, too loud, trying too hard to cover his fears.

_Why would I be nervous? Christ, Sebastian! We fucked last night and twice before the ceremony. What in hell do I have to be nervous about?_

_Because it’s different now. It means something different. It means more._

_Are you telling me that Sebastian Smythe, king of the one night stand, is having deep philosophical thoughts about sex?_

_Kurt, I’m always having deep thoughts about sex, philosophical or otherwise._

Kurt rolls his eyes and lays his head on his new husband’s shoulder.

_But, yes, Kurt. It’s not the same for you?_

Kurt’s eyes flick up to meet Sebastian’s, surprised to see a twinge of hurt. Kurt nods, a shy smile on his lips.

_Yes, it’s the same feeling for me. I know we’ve done it tons of times, but, call me a silly romantic, I want this to be special. I don’t want to mess it up._

Sebastian’s slow burning smile returns.

_If you do that thing you did with your tongue earlier, then I promise you are not going to mess it up._

Kurt smacks Sebastian on the arm and the nervous tension bleeds away, because they’re alone, it’s sunset on the beach, and their beautiful future is beginning.

“We were married on the beach,” Kurt says suddenly, stunned at how he knows that.

“Yes,” Sebastian whispers, “our wedding is the one thing you seem to remember most.”

Kurt tries to conjure up any other memory – the ceremony, their first date, high school - but the sparks fizzle out, the whispers become silent, and all the flashes of light drift away.

“Let’s get out of here,” Kurt says. “Let’s try your plan.”

“Okay,” Sebastian agrees, holding on tighter, and for a long time neither one of them moves – Kurt absorbing the feeling of belonging that comes with Sebastian holding him in his arms and Sebastian relishing embracing his husband again.

Kurt counts several long moments before he speaks again.

“You know, eventually we’re going to have to let go if we’re going to leave.”

He doesn’t want to let go but he’s eager to move on with this plan of Sebastian’s.

“Nope,” Sebastian says.

Kurt giggles, but the way Sebastian keeps him trapped against his body makes Kurt fear that they may actually spend the whole night hugging in this bar.

“You know,” Kurt whispers into Sebastian’s ear so he can feel the heat of Kurt’s breath on his skin, “if we go back to your place, there’s so much more we can do than just hug.”

Sebastian smiles. Kurt can feel it against his neck, and the tentative kiss that follows makes Kurt shiver from the tips of his toes to the ends of his hair.

“There’s my man,” Sebastian murmurs against Kurt’s skin. Sebastian sweeps Kurt off his bar stool, leaving a twenty on the bar to cover his tab, and they walk together arm in arm out of the club.

“I parked in an underground lot just a few blocks from here,” Sebastian says, steering Kurt away from the night club. A small gang of teenagers huddled together outside smoking and laughing and shooting the shit all smile and wave as Kurt shuffles past. A few even nod at Sebastian, raising a hand to give him a high five and a wink. Kurt watches with amusement, turning his head to take one last look at the gaggle before they walk away.

“Do you know them?” Kurt asks.

“You’ve introduced me to some of them,” Sebastian says. “They don’t know that we’re married though. You asked me not to tell anyone.”

Sebastian kicks a broken chunk of cement on the sidewalk ahead of him and watches it skip away along the concrete. Kurt can’t help the guilt that fills him so completely at the thought of denying this amazing man who comes down here every night to watch him sing and tries over and over to bring him back to the life he had before. Kurt wants to apologize but he can’t. He can’t imagine the reason why him from ninety-six days ago wouldn’t want to scream from the rooftops that this man is his husband, but there had to be one. He doesn’t want to give a half-ass apology without knowing why he would make such a lousy decision, but now Kurt doesn’t know what to say and they wallow in the silence too long with that comment still hanging in the air.

“Tell me something about me? About us?” Kurt asks, putting up a hand to stop Sebastian when he starts to object. “I know you have a plan and I respect that, but just to while the time so I don’t focus on how fucking cold it is out here.”

“Well, you’re a frickin’ stubborn-ass princess,” Sebastian says, peeling off his own coat and putting it around Kurt’s shoulders. Kurt wraps the thick material around him, losing himself in Sebastian’s warmth and his smell, snuggling into the arm that has wrapped around his waist and isn’t letting go.

“Okay, now that we’ve got that sorted out, what else?”

Kurt leans his head against Sebastian’s shoulder and Sebastian curbs his surly attitude.

Sebastian has a list of prepared anecdotes already committed to memory for just such an occasion; bits and pieces of information that stray away from certain hot-button topics like the fight that landed Kurt in the hospital, his father’s heart condition, the death of his mother…or of his stepbrother. Sebastian wanted to shoot himself the day he told Kurt that his mother had died in a car accident when he was only eight years old. Kurt cried and cried; absolutely inconsolable. When he had calmed down enough to speak he asked Sebastian to take him to a tattoo parlor so that he could have his mother’s name put on his ankle, in the hopes that he wouldn’t forget.

Several times after that Kurt asked Sebastian who Elizabeth was.

“Why did I print up a hundred of those letters?” Kurt asks as they turn into the parking garage. “Why not less? Why not more?”

“You wanted to see if your memories would come back on their own,” Sebastian explains. “You didn’t like the idea of psychiatrists and whatnot picking your brain. You said if after a hundred days you didn’t come around that I should…”

Sebastian pauses to take a breath, shuddering slightly with a chill from the cold night air.

“Leave me?” Kurt gasps in horror. “Forget about me?”

“No,” Sebastian chuckles, pointing to a sleek, black car in the distance. “Tie you up with duct tape and drag you back to my penthouse.”

Kurt bursts out laughing.

“Would you have actually done that?” he asks.

“Duct tape’s in the trunk of my car.” Sebastian pulls his key fob out of his pocket and disengages the alarm and the locks on his car.

Kurt’s mouth drops the way it always does when he sees Sebastian’s car for the first time.

“You have a Porsche?” Kurt asks in awe with Sebastian parroting away, laughing when Kurt smacks him on the arm.

“Yes, I have a Porsche.” Sebastian opens the passenger side door and helps Kurt inside. “You seem to have a thing for Porches.”

“But you knew that, right?” Kurt rolls his eyes and falls back in the seat with a huff. Sebastian leans down low and catches Kurt’s stormy eyes.

“That’s why I bought it.” He closes the door, and Kurt feels himself blush, his ears definitely a bright pink by the time Sebastian sits in the driver’s seat.

***

The conversation shifts to a lull on the ride uptown. In his head Sebastian goes over the details of his plan, mentally scrolling through a list of items, making sure he didn’t leave anything out. Kurt simply enjoys the ride, wondering if it would be terribly gauche of him to tell this man – his husband that he’s known for years but really only remembers from the last few hours, that sitting in this gorgeous car is getting him hot. It’s a little too difficult a subject for Kurt to navigate, so he chooses instead to keep his mouth shut and ponder killing his hard-on in silence.

If Sebastian’s luxurious car inspired awe, the penthouse where he lives is positively breathtaking in comparison, but Kurt suspects he’s drooled over it like a noob several times before so he keeps his opinion to himself. Sebastian pulls up to the curb and hands his keys over to the valet while the doorman opens the car door for Kurt.

“Mr. Hummel-Smythe,” the man says with a tip of his hat and a genuine smile as Kurt steps out of the car. “It’s nice to see you this evening.”

“Uh…” Kurt throws a glance over his shoulder. Sebastian joins him quickly, taking his arm and giving it a comforting squeeze.

“Thanks, Antonio.” Sebastian grins at the older man who hurries ahead of them to open the door to the lobby. Sebastian rushes Kurt into the building and straight for the elevator.

“Mr. Hummel-Smythe?”

“Well, technically this isn’t just my penthouse. It’s ours.” Sebastian presses the button for the top floor. “After we got married, you hyphenated your name.”

“And how did you explain all _this_ to your doorman?” Kurt asks with a hint of snark, gesturing over his body, from his colored hair and his piercings to his ripped jeans and his tight black shirt. “I definitely didn’t look like this in that wedding picture you showed me. I probably didn’t look like this when I lived here with you.”

Sebastian wraps his fingers around Kurt’s wrist and pushes him up against the elevator wall, pinning him gently with his body.

“Not that it’s any of his business, but I told him you got a job singing at a dive bar downtown and that you’re the hottest thing on two legs.”

Kurt swallows hard, guilt welling up in him again for not telling all those leather clad nobodies that Sebastian is his husband.

“Sebastian, I…”

“Can I kiss you?” Sebastian whispers, cutting Kurt short.

“I…I didn’t think you’d find a need to ask,” Kurt whispers.

“I always ask,” Sebastian says, his eyes staring at Kurt’s lips.

“But…aren’t I your husband?” Kurt asks, his own gaze falling to Sebastian’s lips. “You can kiss me whenever you want.”

“I’m not going to take what you don’t want to give.”

“Oh,” Kurt says lamely, nodding, inching closer and closer to Sebastian’s mouth. Sebastian’s lips barely brush against his and Kurt surges forward, grabbing at the lapels of Sebastian’s suit and drawing him closer. Sebastian moans into Kurt’s mouth, bracing against the wall with a hand on each side of Kurt’s head to keep his balance as Kurt devours him hungrily. The sparks return, firing behind Kurt’s eyes with their intense white light, blurring some images, others so clear they give Kurt a searing headache.

The one that comes into focus, so vivid it can’t be ignored or swept aside, is of Sebastian, a younger Sebastian, sitting across a table, that same irrepressible smirk on his face but this one cruel and calculating. Kurt sees his mouth moving but his voice weaves in and out, and Kurt can only make out one coherent sentence.

_One of us has a hard luck case of the ‘gay face’ and it ain’t me._

Kurt pulls away suddenly, jolted backward by the memory as if the younger Sebastian wearing the prep school uniform reached out through Kurt’s brain and slapped him in the face.

“You told me I had a hard luck case of the ‘gay face’?” Kurt accuses.

Sebastian shakes his head, smiling at the irony.

“You kiss me like that…and that’s the thing you choose to remember?” Sebastian pants against Kurt’s lips.

“Sorry,” Kurt giggles. “It wasn’t exactly by choice.”

“I’m sorry,” Sebastian sighs, “that I ever said that.”

“I believe you.”

Kurt reaches up one more time and presses his lips gently against Sebastian’s mouth right as the doors slide open.

“So…” Kurt starts.

“So…” Sebastian repeats, eyes locked back on Kurt’s swollen lips.

“What’s this big plan of yours?” Kurt bites his lower lip and hears Sebastian scrape his nails down the wall behind him.

“Come on in and I’ll show you.”

Sebastian pushes off the wall and takes Kurt’s hand, walking him backward into the hall and leading him to the only door on the floor. Sebastian unlocks the door and pushes it open, letting Kurt walk in ahead of him. Kurt steps inside, his jaw dropped to his chest. He spins in a full circle, knowing that he’s ogling now but he can’t seem to help himself. If he ever lived in this palace he surely doesn’t remember it. He stumbles to the staircase that leads from the living room to the upper level, feeling as if that is where he needs to go.

“Don’t go into the bedroom yet,” Sebastian calls after him.

Why his feet manage to take him straight to the bedroom he can’t explain, though apparently he’s had sex with Sebastian for the last ninety-five days in a row. Maybe his body remembers where it is he really wants to go. Sebastian races up the stairs behind him, taking them two at a time.

“Okay…” Sebastian stands beside him with his hand on the door knob, preparing for the reveal. “Are you ready?”

Kurt stares at the door, waiting patiently for whatever Sebastian has to show him. Kurt takes a breath and holds, then nods. Sebastian swings the door open and turns on the light. He stands aside to give Kurt space and waits for his reaction.

Kurt doesn’t do anything right away. He doesn’t step in. He doesn’t even move his head to look around. He’s staring unfocused straight ahead. Only when he can’t hold his breath any longer does he breathe in sharply and then walk inside. The room is huge, but that’s not the incredible part. Photographs cover every inch of wall space; photographs of Kurt organized and mounted in chronological order. Kurt starts at the beginning and examines them closely - baby pictures, school pictures, pictures of him dancing and singing, all with dates and captions.

Kurt and Elizabeth – 3 days old.

Kurt’s first day of ballet class – age 5.

Kurt and Burt, backyard tea party – age 8.

Kurt and Burt fixing the family Olds – age 12.

Kurt stops with his fingers hovering over a photograph of him with a group of other high school students dressed in matching outfits captioned ‘The New Directions – Junior Year’ to turn and look at Sebastian in amazement, catching him mid-yawn.

“You did this,” Kurt breathes. “You did all of this today. That’s why you’re so tired.”

Sebastian shrugs and smiles.

“I also made you this,” he says, walking off to the bedside table and returning with a leather-bound journal, brown cover barely cracked which means it has to be new. Kurt takes it in his hands and opens it, flipping through the pages. “This is everything,” Sebastian says as Kurt’s eyes skim over the words. “The story of your life, and of our life together. Everything your…well, your father could tell me…” Sebastian says it quickly, trying to skirt past the word in an effort to abide by Kurt’s wishes and not mention his dad, “everything I tell you every night. I figure maybe you could read it in the morning when you wake up so you don’t freak out too badly…you know…for when you sleep…here…”

Kurt closes the book and sees gold embossing on the cover; large lettered words that say, “Read this when you wake up.”

Kurt blinks, trying to settle the tears that have collected in his eyes when he notices the bed for the first time – the low, wooden end table positioned beside what is normally his side of the bed, and the cream sheets with the pink poesy pattern.

“Those…those are my sheets,” Kurt mumbles, stepping forward and running his fingers over the flannel material. Then he points at the tiny table. “And that’s my table.”

“Yeah,” Sebastian says, following Kurt as he walks toward it. “I had to go to eight stores to find it.”

“I bought it at the thrift shop…” Kurt traces the grain of the wood with his fingertips.

Sebastian chuckles.

“Well, now you have the $800 version.”

Kurt laughs with disbelief.

“You did all this…for me?” Kurt looks up at Sebastian with eyes that start to really see him for the first time. His husband. The man who pledged his life to him – for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, and boy was he holding up his end of the bargain.

“Of course I did.” Sebastian comes up behind him and holds him. “I kind of love you, babe.”

“Only kind of?” Kurt teases, trying to stop the trembling that has spread over his whole body.

“Try…completely…” Sebastian takes the journal from Kurt’s hands and sets it carefully on the table. “Utterly…” He slips the coat from Kurt’s shoulders and tosses it onto a nearby chair. “Absolutely…” Sebastian runs his hands down Kurt’s arms, turning those trembles into fingers of fire racing all over his body. He runs the tip of his nose over Kurt’s shoulders, ending at the crook of his neck, kissing him gently, “…madly in love with you.”

Sebastian’s lips latch onto that spot of sensitive skin at the base of Kurt’s neck, and Kurt’s knees buckle.

“A-am I completely, utterly, absolutely, madly in love with you, too?” Kurt asks, his voice shaking as he fights to stand upright.

“You told me you were…”

Sebastian sighs against Kurt’s skin but his voice sounds sad, full of longing for the man Kurt was and the life they had.

“I think I was,” Kurt mutters, melting back into Sebastian’s arms. “I think…part of me is. I just need to find it.”

“It’s okay.” Sebastian turns Kurt around in his arms. “Take your time.”

“Well, can we start here?” Kurt turns his eyes towards the bed behind them.

“Funny…” Sebastian grabs the hem of Kurt’s shirt and lifts it over his head, pulling it off his arms and tossing it aside, “…we usually finish there.”

Kurt bites back a smile, fumbling with the buttons of Sebastian’s suit wherever he can find them – his jacket, his shirt, his slacks. Sebastian lets Kurt undress him, lets him look at his body with every piece of clothing he removes, lets him trace the lines of his chest and the muscles of his legs with his fingertips and his tongue. It’s the same every time but Sebastian never gets tired of it, because it’s like the first time. As much of a curse as Kurt’s memory loss has been, this part has been a bit of a blessing.

They’re still good together; they still fit.

Sebastian falls back onto the bed, bringing Kurt with him. He runs his hands down Kurt’s chest, reaching for the button to Kurt’s jeans. Kurt closes his eyes and rests his head back on his shoulders.

Each touch of Sebastian’s fingertips on Kurt’s skin ignites a memory.

Dancing together in a bar…or maybe a night club.

Making out in the back seat of a large, black car…not Sebastian’s but Kurt’s.

Saying goodbye in an airport with tears flowing down Kurt’s cheeks, his nose running, but he doesn’t seem to care who sees.

Sebastian twirling him around in his arms; a gold ring glittering on Kurt’s finger.

Kurt absorbs Sebastian’s touches and welcomes all the memories they bring, even if they come at him fast, overwhelming him as another part of his brain tries hard to concentrate on the here and now, where Sebastian’s lips move down his skin to that tattoo on his thigh that he loves to lick, his hands grabbing for Kurt’s to lace their fingers together. Kurt whimpers, feeling the last strains of his sanity siphon away when Sebastian takes his cock in his mouth and starts to suck slowly.

“Oh, Sebastian,” Kurt moans, trying not to move his hips and force himself into Sebastian’s mouth, trying to hold on to every lap of Sebastian’s tongue because he never wants this to end.

“More,” Sebastian groans around the head of Kurt’s cock in his mouth.

“M-more what?” Kurt stutters into the air, hotter now than it had been a few minutes ago.

“My name,” Sebastian mutters, reluctant to give up Kurt’s cock in order to speak. “Keep saying my name…please…”

“Sebastian,” Kurt obliges, almost unconsciously when Sebastian takes the entirety of Kurt’s length down his throat. “Oh, Sebastian!”

“Yes,” Sebastian groans. “God, yes…”

Vibrations from Sebastian’s mouth shoot all over Kurt’s skin, and he loses the little thread of self-control he has left.

“Sebastian…” Kurt’s broken voice pleads, but he makes sure to keep saying Sebastian’s name. “Please, Sebastian…”

“Do you want to cum this way?” Sebastian asks, circling the sword tattoo in small circles with his tongue.

“I…Sebastian…what about you?”

“We have all night, darling. I’ll get my chance.” Sebastian licks a long stripe between Kurt’s legs, and he keens loudly.

“Th-then yes,” Kurt begs. “Please! Please make me cum!”

Sebastian smiles and lowers his mouth over him slowly, swallowing around him as he goes, fueled by Kurt’s mewling whimpers and constant whispers and moans.

“Sebastiansebastiansebastiansebastian…” Kurt murmurs over and over until it’s not even a just word anymore, but an exclamation, a promise, a prayer; a single stream of consciousness. In this moment before the possibility of remembering scurries away and one thing overwhelms Kurt – the total ecstasy of cumming down Sebastian’s throat – he realizes that this is what he longs to remember most; feeling complete and connected.

He has a family.

He has a home.

The walls are covered in proof of a life well lived; one that he wants to return to.

Everything will come back to him in good time. For right now, Sebastian is his memory.

Sebastian climbs up Kurt’s body and without a word captures his mouth, and Kurt takes this moment to clear his muddled mind and treasure it – the taste of himself on his husband’s lips, the slide of Sebastian’s skin over Kurt’s body, all the sacrifices that have been made so that Kurt can climb out of the darkness and learn how to live again.

He compartmentalizes every moment of Sebastian’s fingers on his face, tracing around his smile and the drying tracks of his tears, the way Sebastian’s beautiful green eyes darken with lust and yet still look down at him with such unbridled, sweet love and affection.

Kurt gathers all of these things so that later he can add them somewhere to the pages of Sebastian’s journal.

***

Sebastian wakes before Kurt in the early morning, the dark sky outside the penthouse’s large picture windows barely kissed with traces of sunlight on the horizon. He looks down at the sleeping man beside him and smiles, overjoyed to have his husband with him in his bed, but wary of what will greet him when Kurt finally wakes up.

Last night was so wonderful, as all the nights before it had been, which is why it gets progressively more and more painful to face the fury of a frightened Kurt Hummel, lost and confused, half-dressed and barreling toward the door, throwing curses Sebastian’s way. Sebastian’s resolve is like steel, and he vows to see this ride to the end however long it takes, but every day that passes he wonders how much longer that will be.

He brushes a kiss along Kurt’s temple, lingering for a moment in case this is the last kiss he gets before the evening. He sets the journal beside Kurt, hoping that it’s the first thing he sees when he opens his eyes, then he slinks carefully out of bed, wrapping a robe around his body and heading down to the kitchen to start a pot of coffee.

Sebastian watches the coffee drip into the pot, counting each drop that falls, distracting his mind from the man asleep upstairs. He drinks his coffee standing by the counter, eyes trained on the staircase that leads up to the second floor, waiting for Kurt to come racing down. It usually doesn’t take too long when Sebastian gets out of bed for Kurt to follow suit; probably the heat of his body escaping jars Kurt awake., but after an hour passes and Kurt doesn’t emerge, Sebastian considers climbing back upstairs and into bed.

Sebastian hears the bedroom door creak open and Kurt’s footsteps pad down the hallway and onto the staircase, slowly picking his way from stair to stair, trying to be as quiet as possible. Sebastian sips his coffee and braces himself for whatever Kurt might bring with him – a fit of tears, a level a hundred screaming fit, or a right cross and a threat to call the police.

Kurt appears dressed in Sebastian’s dress shirt from the night before, an expression on his face that’s slightly terrified but mostly curious.

“Sebastian?” Kurt says quietly. Sebastian stops drinking his coffee and lowers his cup to the counter, turning with the shadow of a hopeful grin on his face.

“Do you…remember me?” Sebastian asks, not making a move to reach out to Kurt so he doesn’t shrink away.

“No…not really,” Kurt answers sadly. “Not in clear images. More like feelings. Impressions.” Kurt raises his arms and Sebastian can see the brown leather cover of the journal in his hands. He hugs it to his chest. “But, this book…”

“You read it?”

“Yes…most of it,” Kurt admits. “The parts you wrote about how we met, our first kiss…a few things I guess I wrote last night.”

Sebastian can sense Kurt’s discomfort. He shifts from foot to foot ceaselessly, gaze darting to the front door.

“You can take that with you if you want,” Sebastian says, trying to come across as nonchalant in the face of his failure and Kurt’s inevitable departure, “I have another one here.”

“I…” Kurt starts walking toward Sebastian, staring at his bare feet pattering across the hardwood floor as he chews his lip, “…was actually hoping I wouldn’t have to leave.” Kurt raises his eyes to meet Sebastian’s wide-eyed stare. “I was hoping I could stay here, with you, and give this a try.”

Kurt doesn’t wait for a response. He crowds Sebastian with his body and Sebastian wraps his arms around him.

“But, I thought you said you didn’t remember me?” Sebastian asks, nuzzling Kurt’s hair with his nose and breathing him in.

“I do and I don’t,” Kurt admits. “I don’t remember how we met, but I know you take your coffee black with two sugars. I don’t remember our first date, but I know your favorite color is blue. All this stuff you wrote in the journal…I want that all back.” Kurt sighs when Sebastian kisses his forehead. “I may not remember much about you, but you feel like home, Sebastian. I want to come home. What do you think?”

“I think,” Sebastian says with a long, shuddering sigh, “that it sounds like a start.”


	141. How I Torture Myself

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rated M. 
> 
> Don’t ask. I have no idea.
> 
> Warnings for anger sex, oral sex, infidelity, language, symptoms of depression, and mention of Klaine (Blaine). Bittersweet with angst and a lot of insulting.

Sebastian’s cock brushes Kurt’s prostate and his eyes roll, eyelids fluttering shut, his body still and waiting, praying it will happen again.

“You know, it wouldn’t kill you to moan or something,” Sebastian grunts. “So I know you’re still awake. And are you going to actually move, or are you going to stay there like a statue?”

“You said you wanted to fuck me, asshole,” Kurt growls. “So fuck me.”

Sebastian digs his nails into Kurt’s hips and pounds harder, making a point to get his frustration across. Kurt rears back and meets him stroke for stroke to show Sebastian what he thinks of his petty attempts at being rough, but that turns Sebastian on more.

“That’s what I’m talking about, princess,” he moans.

“I…I didn’t know you needed my help, Smythe,” Kurt pants, continuing to fuck himself on Sebastian’s cock. “How the fuck are you so popular?”

“It’s not my fault that you’re a frigid bitch,” Sebastian argues, reaching around Kurt’s body and grabbing his cock, jerking him off dry and tugging uncomfortably hard. Kurt doesn’t care. He wants it to hurt. He needs the pain. It’s the only thing that erases everything else. Kurt knows that as soon as the pounding in his ass stops, he’ll have to contend with the agony in his heart; dealing soberly with the blistering disappointment his life in New York has become.

Always passed over in favor of Blaine.

Sidelined because of Rachel’s so-called talent.

Shelved before his prime, expected to be content with mediocrity.

Sebastian is the only thing in his life that exceeds his expectations, even if afterwards he can’t look at himself for days.

“Oh, Kurt,” Sebastian moans. “God, Kurt. How are you so incredibly tight? Oh, Kurt…”

This is the part of having sex with Sebastian that Kurt can’t stand, when Sebastian gets caught up in some fantasy of his own. It’s the sound of his voice, the way he says Kurt’s name that confuses him. In some ways it infuriates him. In other ways it tugs at his heart from all sides, pulling it apart completely. There’s something close to love in the way he says Kurt’s name, and it burns Kurt with curiosity.

Kurt doesn’t know what the fantasy is. Sebastian won’t tell.

Kurt and Sebastian work so well because they’re both equally broken. Sebastian knows what broke Kurt.

Whatever broke Sebastian, Kurt is sure he’ll never know.

Sebastian’s hips stutter, and Kurt slams back against him, not even close to done yet.

“Oh, Kurt,” Sebastian continues to mutter.

“Not yet,” Kurt says in a panic. “Don’t you fucking cum yet.”

“Y-your fault f-for outlawing condoms,” Sebastian babbles around a long sustained moan.

Kurt knew it was stupid and risky. Sebastian has definitely been ridden more than the ‘A’ train. He made no attempt to hide that fact. But it felt too good having sex without them, and Kurt wanted to take more risks, even if it was with his health.

Sebastian pulls out, leaving a trail of cum behind, and flips Kurt over, taking his still hard cock in his mouth and sucking hard. Kurt has to hand it to Sebastian; he always knows what to do to get Kurt off. It doesn’t take much; not with Sebastian’s talented tongue wrapping around his dick and massaging his shaft.

“Oh, God,” Kurt groans, grabbing the back of Sebastian’s head and pulling him down over his cock, burying himself down his throat. He can hear Sebastian gag, but Sebastian doesn’t struggle, just waits patiently until Kurt is done, until the death grip in his hair loosens and he can get up and breathe.

“Fuck, Kurt,” Sebastian sighs, sucking in a deep breath, filling his lungs to bursting, “if I didn’t think you’d eventually kill me, I’d say we should do that every day.

Sebastian looks blissfully happy and relaxed, and tonight, like most nights, Kurt wishes he could join him in his delirium, but Kurt’s already retreating.

“Great,” Kurt says through clenched teeth. “You got what you wanted. Now get the fuck out.”

Sebastian’s head snaps around to look at Kurt, his smile disappearing, his eyes dark and menacing.

“ _I_ got what _I_ wanted?” Sebastian hisses. “You practically dragged me back here!”

“Yeah, well now I’m kicking your ass out.” Kurt wraps the comforter on the bed around him, shying away from the wet spot growing below his ass.

Sebastian huffs in frustration, standing up and pulling on his clothes.

“You know,” he mutters to himself loud enough for Kurt to clearly hear every word as he dresses, “after all this time how can I even be fucking surprised? I fall for your bullshit every single time.”

“Well, that makes you stupid and a lousy fuck,” Kurt chokes out, pushing himself as far up the bed as he can to put as much distance as possible between himself and Sebastian, because if he doesn’t, if he gets any closer, he might throw himself into Sebastian’s arms and start crying.

If he starts crying with Sebastian’s arms wrapped around him, he knows he’ll never stop.

Sebastian looks at Kurt, cocooned in his blanket and shuddering against the pillows, but he can’t feel any sympathy for him, especially with his pride still stinging.

“Give my regards to Blaine, princess,” Sebastian says with a smirk. He turns toward the dresser where Kurt keeps his engagement ring when they fuck, picks up the gold band, and tosses it at him. It lands on the comforter right beside Kurt’s knee, and Kurt flinches, inching farther away. Sebastian walks away from Kurt and shows himself to the door, ignoring the faint, muffled sobs that follow him out.

Sebastian bites his lip until he’s sure it will bleed.

He knows he should stop.

He knows that the next time he sees Kurt coming, he should run the other way…but he won’t.

He can’t.

Sebastian knows he’ll give in to Kurt. He’ll give in to Kurt every single time.

He’ll follow Kurt here to the loft, and he’ll let Kurt break him just a little bit more.

 

 

 


	142. How I End the Torment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rated M. A continuation to 'How I Torture Myself'. Rated M for drinking, depression, infidelity, language, and mention of Blaine/Klaine.

Kurt drags Sebastian up the stairs, stomping loudly on the hollow wood as he trips over his own feet. The sound echoes chaotically off the walls but Kurt has long since stopped caring about whether or not the neighbors hear him. He’s not sure what they would do even if his ruckus did bother them. The police don’t always come out to this part of Brooklyn no matter how many times you call them; a fact that should probably bother Kurt more than it does. He teeters on the edge of the step and slips forward. His nose stops within inches of hitting the railing and he breaks into a fit of giggles, too drunk to recognize that Sebastian’s hand, locked firmly in his, saved him from a black eye and a broken nose. Kurt tugs on Sebastian’s arm again as he continues wobbly on his way, turning back when Sebastian stands firmly on the step and doesn’t follow.

“Come on,” Kurt slurs, playfully pulling on Sebastian’s hand, “just a few more steps. You know the way.”

Sebastian stands his ground. Kurt’s expression sours when he sees his companion isn’t about to move.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, you spoiled sport?” Kurt frowns at Sebastian’s disapproving stare.

“I was just thinking that maybe I should carry you so you don’t fall and break your frickin’ neck,” Sebastian says, climbing up a single step.

“How chivalrous of you,” Kurt drawls and his eyes roll dramatically upward. He drops Sebastian’s hand, intent on making it up to the loft with or without him, swaying on his feet from the lack of support. He takes a tentative step up but then stumbles back down a few stairs, falling against Sebastian’s solid chest.

“Okay, princess…” Sebastian leans forward and lifts Kurt into his arms, “let’s get you upstairs before you bust your ass.”

Kurt struggles weakly against Sebastian’s strong biceps hoisting him into the air. He opens his mouth to object but when Sebastian starts walking up the stairs, holding him closer in his firm embrace, Kurt changes his mind, instead looping his arms around Sebastian’s neck and resting against his shoulder. Sebastian glances down at Kurt’s face, his eyelids drifting closed as he snuggles into his coat. Kurt’s newly haggard appearance worries Sebastian. Kurt has always been such a stickler about his looks – his intense skin care regimen, his eclectic clothing choices, his meticulously styled coiffure, but lately Kurt has let that go to the wayside, or maybe he could care less when he goes out alone in the evening to get his drunk on. If that’s not the case, why hasn’t Blaine, or Rachel, or one of Kurt’s other loyal New Directions friends noticed by now?

Sebastian doesn’t bother setting Kurt down as he fumbles with the door handle. He feels the latch beneath his fingers and pulls it, shoving the sliding door aside. That’s another thing Kurt has taken to forgetting when he leaves the loft. He doesn’t lock the door and he doesn’t take his key. He’s throwing caution to the wind, basically inviting danger to his doorstep, and even though it shouldn’t matter to Sebastian, hiding deep in his bones he finds he has a compulsion to find out why.

Sebastian carries Kurt to his bedroom and dumps him indignantly on the bed, trying not to chuckle when Kurt’s eyes pop open in surprise and he lets out a tiny, startled, “oomph!”

“Not that I really give a shit,” Sebastian says, sounding as distant as he can, lying to himself that’s how he really feels, “but why do you do this?”

“Do what?” Kurt lies on his back and clumsily kicks off his shoes, shooting them one by one haphazardly around the space he calls his room. He stands back up, stumbling over one of them in his haste to grab Sebastian and pull him to the bed, once again his hand locked in Sebastian’s grasp the only thing that saves him from landing on his face.

“Drink yourself delusional and then fuck me?”

“Would you rather I drink myself delusional and fuck someone else?” Kurt laughs, but it’s not as carefree as his drunken laughter from an hour earlier.

“No,” Sebastian says, taking off his coat out of habit and dropping it on a chair by the bed. “I would rather you not drink yourself delusional at all, and we do this the right way.”

“And what is the right way for Sebastian Smythe?” Kurt asks, pawing at Sebastian’s shirt front in a sloppy attempt at seduction. “In the bathroom at Club Amnesia, or the back alley behind Callbacks?”

“How about a good, old fashioned date?” Sebastian takes Kurt’s arms and lowers them from where his fingers almost rip the buttons off Sebastian’s Brooks Brothers dress shirt.

“We can’t go on a date,” Kurt whispers. “I’m engaged.” Kurt raises his left hand and wiggles his ring finger in front of Sebastian’s face, laughing even as his face crumbles and the tears start to fall.

“Yeah, I can see how much that ring means to you.” Sebastian’s voice drips with a brand of sarcasm that stings like acid. His words burn and Kurt flinches. “But you know,” Sebastian continues, taking Kurt’s trembling hand in his, “engagements are negotiable.”

Kurt sputters a laugh that sounds more like a sob.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means…” Sebastian sits on the bed and pulls Kurt into his lap, “that if you really don’t want to marry the motherfucker, then you hand him back the ring and you say, ‘See ya, loser.’”

“I’ll do what I damn well please, Smythe.” Kurt attempts to stand up, failing at rearranging his legs and feet in a way that will adequately support his body weight, and lands back in Sebastian’s lap. “Besides,” Kurt whispers, sounding infinitely more sober, “it’s not that easy.”

“Bullshit,” Sebastian says, pushing Kurt onto the bed and climbing over his body, pinning him to the mattress beneath him. “There’s something else. Tell me what it is.”

Kurt’s solemn eyes, watery blue and swimming from too little sleep and too much tequila, harden as he glares up at Sebastian’s condescending face.

“Why the fuck do you care all of a sudden?” Kurt asks. “You don’t give a shit about me. What did you say our first time? I’m pretty and convenient? At least Blaine says that he loves me.”

Sebastian shakes his head. He wants to be bitter but he can’t because Kurt’s right. That’s exactly what he said. But those words weren’t completely true when he said them, and even if they were, things change. Things _have been_ changing.

“Kurt, you wouldn’t know love if it were looking right at you.” Sebastian watches Kurt’s face as his eyes drift away - so blank, so pale, so lost. He sighs. “Why don’t you tell me what’s bothering you.”

Kurt’s hands travel over Sebastian’s thighs, toying with his belt buckle, needing the distraction. He hopes if he brushes the uninterested bulge in Sebastian’s pants enough that he’ll forget all this talk and get to the business of pulling Kurt’s pants down around his ankles and fucking him hard.

No such luck, as it turns out, as Sebastian is the soul of patience.

“Rachel’s leaving,” Kurt says, his eyes rolling up to avoid the scrutiny from Sebastian’s expectant eyes, “and Blaine’s going with her.”

Sebastian waits for a second, quietly letting his mind absorb Kurt’s words and for once trying to determine the most tactful way to proceed.

“Where are they going?” Sebastian asks. He knows it’s not his place to ask. It’s actually none of his business, but he’s not ashamed of prying. There’s a splinter of fear in his need to know. If Blaine leaves New York that most likely means Kurt will go with him, and for ways and means that he can’t find words to express, he doesn’t want that to happen.

“Los Angeles.”

Sebastian crawls off Kurt’s body and sits back on the edge of the bed, giving Kurt space to sit up.

“When did this all happen?”

“A few weeks ago.” Kurt sits beside Sebastian but he doesn’t turn his face to speak directly to him. Instead he looks down at the cerulean socks on his feet, swinging his legs back and forth as he kicks the frame of the bed. “Some director or producer or some ‘er’ of some kind saw Rachel at the theater performing in _Funny Girl_. I guess he talked to her after the show and decided she was so darned interesting that he wanted to make a sitcom about her life.” Kurt pauses for a moment to take a breath and finally lifts his head to meet Sebastian’s eyes. “They sent a writer down to hang with her, follow her around, get a feel for what she does and the people she calls her friends, and well, they liked Blaine. A lot. They cast him as her plucky best friend.”

Kurt makes a disgusted face and plops back on the bed.

“Wait…” Sebastian spreads out on his side beside Kurt, “aren’t _you_ the plucky best friend?”

“I was.” Kurt bites his lip, staring at the ceiling. “It’s a character based on me, but Blaine’s playing him.”

Kurt rolls on his side to face Sebastian, eyes red-rimmed, veins spider-webbing out over the whites while he tries too hard to force a nonchalant grin on his face.

“Piece by piece he was taking over my life,” Kurt says with a bitter laugh, “and now he literally has it.”

Sebastian has a strong urge to tell Kurt to man up, to stop whining and feeling sorry for himself, and in any other situation he would, but on another level he sympathizes with Kurt. He knows what it feels like to be the better man and still not be good enough. He knows what it’s like to want something that’s constantly being pulled away, farther and farther until all hope of catching it disappears.

He knows what it’s like to have a dream and to watch it get stolen out from beneath his nose.

Strangely enough, he and Kurt are having something they desperately want usurped by the same man.

“So…what does this mean for you guys?” Sebastian doesn’t want to sound invested, but he also doesn’t want to beat around the bush. If Kurt is leaving to follow his self-serving fiancé to California, then Sebastian wants to come up with a plan of attack, but he can’t seem to decide between talking Kurt out of leaving or cutting all ties and start drinking himself delusional like Kurt’s been doing.

Kurt stares at Sebastian blankly, as if he didn’t quite understand the question, or maybe like Sebastian is crazy for asking.

“Are you going with him?”

“I should…shouldn’t I.”

It’s part statement, part question, and the more vague and cryptic Kurt seems to sound, the more Sebastian really understands. Sebastian and Kurt started their tryst because they both needed someone to fuck, but not out of love or any kind of mutual affection, but as a means of escape. Ironically enough, Sebastian was trying to escape his long standing obsession with Kurt. He knew Kurt would probably never love him, but he would take him any way he could get him. He hoped that after enough of Kurt’s sass and attitude he’d have as much of him as he could take and finally learn how to hate him.

All those things made Sebastian want Kurt more.

Kurt was trying to escape the life he had made for himself and Blaine.

Kurt gave Blaine a place to stay, practically padded his acceptance into NYADA, handed him opportunity after opportunity, even if not entirely intentionally but that wasn’t supposed to matter because they were a team. They were running a race together.

Blaine gave Kurt a ring that had started to feel like a noose around Kurt’s neck.

“Kurt,” Sebastian says so softly his voice doesn’t even sound like his own, “do you want to go to California?”

Kurt doesn’t seem to hear him. He’s staring off at a spot in the distance now, on the curtain to his room, or maybe past his room to the front door, or somewhere in his mind that Sebastian can’t reach.

“Being on Broadway has always been my dream,” Kurt mutters under his breath. He looks broken. He must have already agreed to go, Sebastian thinks, and now that he’s had a moment to come to terms with his decision he’s watching his dream fall apart in front of his eyes.

“Kurt, listen to me,” Sebastian says, urgently trying to bring Kurt back from the void before he shatters completely, “don’t go. Don’t give up your dream. You worked hard to get here. You got into a school some people would kill to go to. Don’t give up your life for his.”

“How?” Kurt’s voice is barely louder than a breath. “How am I going to stay here? I can’t afford this loft on my own.  I can’t even afford the dorms. It’s like Blaine said, if I don’t go, I’ll just end up back in Lima.”

Sebastian’s blood starts to boil in his veins. Blaine really pulled out all the stops, saying whatever he knew would make Kurt bend. Kurt swore he wouldn’t go back to Ohio and be a Lima Loser. Sebastian can’t begin to imagine what else he threw in Kurt’s face to make him agree to surrender his dreams.

“Stay with me,” Sebastian blurts out, not thinking before the words left his mouth, but now that they did he has no intention of taking them back. “Move in with me. Go out with me…or don’t, just don’t leave for him. You’ll regret it, Kurt. You know I’m right.”

Something in Kurt’s brain snaps and he’s on his knees, crossing the bed and climbing into Sebastian’s lap. He attacks Sebastian’s neck, too rough, more teeth than lips and tongue as he kisses him, fingers pushing the buttons of Sebastian’s shirt through their holes.

“Kurt…” Sebastian snatches Kurt’s wrists and holds them tight.

“No.” Kurt pulls to be free of Sebastian’s grasp. “We’re not talking about this. That’s not why you’re here.”

“I think this might be a little more important than sex right now,” Sebastian demands, pushing Kurt off of his lap and standing to hold him at arm’s length.

Kurt pulls again, tugging left and right, using all his strength to break free but Sebastian is just a bit stronger.

“Y-you said you’d never say no to me!” Kurt sobs.

“I’m not saying no,” Sebastian says, fighting to stay calm.

“You said you’d never leave me!”

“I haven’t gone anywhere, have I!?”

Sebastian lets go of Kurt’s arms and Kurt shoves him back with as much strength as he can muster. Sebastian stumbles with the force and the backs of his knees hit the bed, but he manages to keep his balance. Kurt swings at him, hitting his chest, his neck, his shoulder; hitting him hard.

“What are you going to do, Kurt?” Sebastian lets Kurt hit him, gritting his teeth through the harder punches, waiting for Kurt to tire out. “Are you going to force yourself on me? Are you going to beat me up?”

“Fuck you!” Kurt growls, but his arms grow weak, and when the next punch he throws doesn’t land Sebastian uses that to his advantage and snakes his arms around Kurt’s body, holding him securely against him. Kurt goes quiet, but his whole body shakes, and though Sebastian can’t hear the sobs he can feel Kurt’s crying shake through him like faraway thunder warning of an impending storm.

“Why aren’t you mine, Kurt?” Sebastian kisses Kurt on the forehead, the most bittersweet kiss Kurt has ever felt on his skin.

“Because…because you didn’t want me.”

Sebastian doesn’t know if he should laugh or cry. His first instinct is to argue. Of course he wants Kurt. Who wouldn’t want Kurt? Except that Sebastian made an art of pushing Kurt away, so no, of course Kurt would never believe that Sebastian Smythe was pining for him all this time. He comes up with what he thinks might be the right answer, but he waits a second too long, and another voice is calling through the loft from the still open door.

Sebastian feels Kurt turn to stone in his arms, every muscle tense and rigid.

“Kurt!” Blaine yells. “Kurt! Are you there? You left the door open again.”

“I’ll handle this,” Sebastian whispers. Kurt’s not even sure if he wants Sebastian to handle it, but he lets him because what does he have to lose. Sebastian disappears through the curtain and Kurt slowly descends to the bed, laying on his back and hiding with his hands over his eyes.

Kurt’s head pounds as the two men clash. Their voices come at him in pulsations between the blistering pain of his headache and the cold sweat of nausea that has suddenly set in.

“Sebastian! What the fuck…”

“…feeling upset and neglected, why didn’t you take the time…”

“…so you’re fucking him? He’s my fiancé! What the hell’s…”

“…don’t think he wants…didn’t give him any choice…”

“…none of your business…”

On and on it went, fragments of conversation slamming Kurt in the gut, and if not for his brand new Egyptian cotton sheets he would have lost breakfast, lunch, and dinner right there on his bed. A break in Blaine’s part of the arguing catches his attention and all Kurt can hear now is Sebastian muttering louder and louder.

“Don’t worry, you fucking psycho. I’m going.”

Kurt dies right then and there, unable to feel, unable to move, his last thread of hope walking out the door with the rest of his soul in tow. He shouldn’t have been so stupid. He should have stood up for himself. He should have taken Sebastian up on his offer. It is what he’s dreamed about for weeks, since Blaine made the decision to leave, that what he and Sebastian had between them wasn’t mindless sex. Maybe it was something more. But now he’s lost it, and he’ll never know for sure. He’ll follow Blaine to L. A. like the househusband he’s apparently destined to be. Tomorrow he’ll go to the first Pottery Barn he can find and buy himself a frilly apron, but for now he closes his eyes and the world goes black.

***

Kurt’s body wakes up slowly, and with it comes a healthy dose of pain and aggravation. He doesn’t want consciousness. He doesn’t want to deal with Blaine, because Blaine doesn’t fight or argue like a normal human being. It’s almost like a big, predictable act. He gets this love-lost, heartbroken expression of bordering on tears but not quite, and then starts in with the sad, puppy dog eyes. He’ll take everything Kurt’s done in the last few weeks, everything from being two minutes late for their lunch date to sleeping with Sebastian and make it all about him. It doesn’t matter that Blaine got opportunity after opportunity that should have at least partially belonged to Kurt and never once considered Kurt’s feelings. It doesn’t matter that he was moving to L. A. and handing out ultimatums left and right and maybe, just maybe Kurt felt his life slipping away before anything has even begun for him.

Kurt knows that prolonging the inevitable will make things worse in the long run so he chances one eyelid open, and then another, making a startling realization.

He’s not in his own bed.

He opens his eyes wider against his own better judgment, but the curtains are drawn tight over the windows and all of the lights are turned off.

“Hey, princess. Are you finally ready to rejoin the land of the living?” Kurt hears Sebastian more than he sees him, but his voice - his smooth, velvety voice, one of the things Kurt always liked about Sebastian even when he despised him - is warm and forgiving. “How do you feel?”

“Like the floor of a taxi cab,” Kurt grumbles, wincing when his own voice shoots like a pinball all over the inside of his skull. “Where am I?”

“I took you home,” Sebastian says.

“Home?”

Kurt props himself up on weak elbows, his vision shifting left and right as blurry eyes scan the bed; the rich, satin sheets surrounding his body and the gigantic mattress he’s lying on.

“Yes,” Sebastian says, handing Kurt a glass of water and two small, white pills, “home. My home.”

Kurt throws back the pills and chases them with the water, his dry, sticky mouth monumentally grateful for the scant bit of relief.

“Why would you do that?” Kurt says. The words are cynical, but his curious tone doesn’t match.

“Because I wanted to,” Sebastian shrugs, “and to tell you the truth, Hummel, you kind of needed me to.”

“How do you know what I need?” Kurt rolls over on his side, wincing as his skin comes in contact with the sheets and tries to crawl off his bones.

Sebastian tries to think up an answer Kurt will believe. Would Kurt buy that Sebastian has feelings for him, something other than the ‘I barely tolerate looking at the back of your head while I fuck you’ kind? Would he believe that Sebastian sort of always did? Or that the idea or Kurt moving 3,000 miles away to follow some fucktard and become his lap dog would kill him?

No. No one is ready for any of those revelations, especially not Sebastian, so he goes with the next best thing.

Reverse psychology carefully shrouded beneath his own trademarked sardonicism.

“Look, if you really want to go to La-La Land and stand in the wings holding Blaine’s purse while he gets all the praise and adoration and a television contract playing you, of all people, then there’s the door.” Sebastian points to an ambiguous point in another room. “Be my guest.”

Kurt sits up in bed and stares past Sebastian’s finger into the darkness, and for a moment Sebastian thinks he might do it, might get up on unsteady feet and walk out the door.

“Or,” Sebastian covers, sitting down carefully by his side, “you can stay here with me, go to NYADA, and follow your dream, and maybe, just maybe, succeed at the thing you love and be happy for the rest of your life.”

Kurt swallows lightly, turning his eyes to look at Sebastian.

“You’d let me live here?” Kurt asks, mildly stunned.

“Yes,” Sebastian replies with a nod for emphasis. “We’ll get all your horrid clothes and the rest of your things, and you can have the spare bedroom in the back, if that’s what you want.”

“And what about us?” Kurt whispers.

“What about us?” Sebastian asks, and in an instant Kurt looks helpless.

“Is there going to be an ‘us’?”

Sebastian tilts his head and considers Kurt’s question. He doesn’t want Kurt to feel obligated to be with him because he’s living there, but how would Sebastian even broach such a subject?

“Do you need there to be an ‘us’?” he asks instead.

“No,” Kurt says confidently, “but it might be…you know…nice.”

Sebastian bobs his head, thinking things over, relieved to know that the fiercely independent Kurt that he fell in love with still exists inside of him somewhere.

“I think that might be…nice,” Sebastian agrees. “Can ‘us’ start now?”

Kurt’s eyebrows draw together in confusion, but Sebastian simply climbs beneath the blankets and pulls a still world weary Kurt close. Kurt sighs quietly, melting against him. Of all the times they’ve had sex, never once has he fallen asleep in Sebastian’s arms. He thinks right away that it might be something he could see himself getting used to.

“Get a little more sleep, babe,” Sebastian whispers, placing small kisses at the nape of his neck and smiling, feeling the earth shift in a more favorable direction. “We’ll face the wolves tomorrow…together.”


	143. Man's Best Friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the tumblr prompt 'shapeshifter'. Warnings for past!Klaine. Not Blaine or Klaine friendly. Future fic, angst, AU. Blaine drops in on Kurt unexpectedly in an attempt to get Kurt to take him back, and finds Kurt cuddling with a new friend.

Kurt ran his hand down the back of the beautiful Rhodesian, whose head rested in his lap, inquisitive green eyes staring up at him, silently offering Kurt strength. The act of smoothing down the animal’s striking red fur soothed Kurt’s frazzled nerves. Kurt smiled weakly, wishing that his surprise guest would just get the hint and go away.

Blaine paced the rustic throw rug in front of the couch, trying to find any way to make Kurt listen to reason. He wanted to sit beside Kurt, put his arms around him, remind him of all the intimacy they had, but the obtrusive ridgeback took up the entire couch. Blaine made no move to approach the dog. Every time he came within touching distance of Kurt, the beast turned its full attention on him and growled low, threatening Blaine with a curl of its lip and a show of white teeth. Something about the dog unnerved Blaine.

Its expressive eyes looked almost human.

Blaine had never seen a dog with emerald green eyes.

Blaine watched Kurt pet the dog, his brow furrowing in confusion.

“When did you get a dog, anyway?” he asked, wary of the way the animal kept one eye on him at all times.

“He was a present from a friend.” Kurt placed a kiss to the dog’s muzzle.

Blaine nodded slowly, his expression changing as he thought he finally understood.

“Boyfriend, you mean,” Blaine said, his voice rising in volume, becoming more accusatory. “You have a new boyfriend! That’s why you won’t get back together with me.”

Kurt rolled his eyes and squeezed them shut, pinching the bridge of his nose between his forefinger and thumb. The dog brought its head up to Kurt’s chest, resting against him and licking beneath his chin.

“That’s not the reason,” Kurt said in exasperation. “I broke up with you because you cheated on me. I’m not getting back together with you because you haven’t shown me a single thing that proves you’ve changed.”

Kurt sighed, trying hard not to lose his patience.

“We’re just…too different now, Blaine. I’ve moved on. You should, too.”

“I don’t believe this.” Blaine threw his peacoat on, grumbling as he did up the buttons. “I came all the way out here, Kurt…I followed you _again_ , and for what? I should have gone to California with Sam…” Blaine continued to mutter as he threw his scarf around his neck, not bothering to tuck the ends into the collar of his coat.

Blaine fixed Kurt with a wounded glare.

“Good-by, Kurt,” he spat out, his voice wavering. “Have fun with your _dog_!”

Kurt let his head drop backwards, leaning against the frame of the couch as he heard Blaine stomp out the door.

“I will,” Kurt called after him, listening to him slide the loft door shut and his footsteps disappear down the hall.

He felt the large dog finally move and smiled.

“I can’t believe it,” Kurt groaned. “That’s the fifteenth time this month.”

“Well,” a deep, velvety voice murmured, “let’s hope he’s gone for good this time.”

Kurt turned his head toward the sound, watching as the last of the Rhosdesian Ridgeback’s silky auburn coat dissolved into Sebastian’s perfect, pale skin. Sebastian’s grin didn’t fade when he captured Kurt’s lips, sucking on his plush lower lip, making him moan in anticipation of where else that mouth might want to kiss and suck.

“So,” a delightfully naked Sebastian growled, pulling Kurt down on the couch beneath him, “where were we?”


	144. Once You Go Ridgeback...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, a bit of an explanation and an apology. Anon asked for an April Fools Day fic that would include a kink or just something I wouldn’t normally write. So, here’s a part 2 to Man’s Best Friend (the shapeshifter AU). Warnings - oral sex with a dog (dog on human, not human on dog). Sebastian as a dog goes down on Kurt. There I said it…

Kurt spent an extra half-hour beneath the shower spray, hoping that his boyfriend would snap out of his funk and join him, but after his fingertips had wrinkled beyond belief Kurt finally gave up, turning off the water and stepping out of the oppressive steam into the cool air. He tried to towel off quickly before all the heat dissipated, frowning when he remembered that he had left his clothes in the bedroom – another lure he dangled in front of Sebastian’s nose. But from the sound of high-pitched whining, Kurt knew that Sebastian was right where Kurt had left him – lying forlornly on the bedroom floor.

Sebastian hadn’t said anything about what was bothering him when he got home. He grumbled and spat curses, even sniffled once or twice. He tossed off his clothes, shifted into his dog form, and hopped onto the couch, looking for attention from Kurt.

Kurt petted and nuzzled and cuddled the large Rhodesian, but nothing seemed to help. He decided to jump into a shower in an attempt to get Sebastian to transform back so they could have comfort sex, but that didn’t work at all.

“Come on, Bas,” Kurt said, kneeling down in front of the dog to scratch its neck. “Change back and we can go to the movies or dancing or anything you want.”

The dog simply laid his head back down on his front two paws and looked up at Kurt with expressive green eyes.

“Or don’t change,” Kurt offered, “and we can go to the park. We’ll play ball. You can chase squirrels and children. It’ll be fun.”

If a dog could roll his eyes, Sebastian definitely did.

“Ugh,” Kurt exclaimed, standing back up and looking down his own naked body to consider the dog lying at his feet. Kurt had to come to terms with the fact that maybe there just wasn’t a quick fix to Sebastian’s problem.

“I wish you’d just tell me what I could do to help,” Kurt murmured.

The dog’s eyes followed Kurt, tilting his head to the side as if thinking about what Kurt had just said. The dog stood, eyes fixed on Kurt’s gaze, then he quickly nuzzled Kurt between the legs with his muzzle, stepping back with questioning eyes. Kurt considered the gesture, and smiled.

“Of course, Bas,” Kurt said. “If you change, we can have sex.”

The dog shook his head and repeated the motion, nuzzling between Kurt’s legs.

Kurt raised an eyebrow at the dog who stared back with hopeful green eyes. When Kurt still didn’t seem to understand what the Rhodesian wanted, the dog repeated the motion one more time, this time pushing Kurt forward until he stepped backward, the backs of his knees connecting with the mattress.

All the tumblers clicked, and Kurt smiled, shaking his head.

“Uh-uh,” Kurt said. “Nope. No, we are not doing that.”

Sebastian had talked to Kurt a few times about being sexually intimate while he was in his dog form. Nothing too strange. He had this fantasy of going down on Kurt while he was the Rhodesian. He had confessed that once or twice while Kurt slept Sebastian had shifted and tasted Kurt, and his heightened canine senses had craved more ever since.

It just seemed so dirty to Kurt. Not physically dirty. Sebastian was the most immaculate dog Kurt had ever seen, last of a bloodline of royalty who were able to transform into dogs at will. And Kurt had to admit, as a dog Sebastian was beautiful – strong and tall, and so regal. But it just felt immoral, being sexual with an animal, even though inside the body of the dog was the soul of his boyfriend.

Sebastian nuzzled him again, this time pushing forward until Kurt sat on the bed. Then he put his head on Kurt’s leg, looking up at him with round, sad eyes, whining pitifully. Kurt bit his lip.

“Sebastian,” he groaned. “Do I have to?”

The dog yipped once in response, hopping up onto the bed, and circling the mattress excitedly while Kurt made his way to the head of the bed and lay down.

“Just…watch those teeth,” Kurt muttered, doing his best to get comfortable with the idea that he was going to let a dog go down on him. The Rhodesian stopped for a moment to lick Kurt’s face, running his tongue over his cheek, his jawline, and his neck.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Kurt said, pushing the dog away, “let’s…just get this over with.”

The dog settled himself by Kurt’s side with his head resting on Kurt’s stomach. Kurt could feel the dog’s hot breath over his flaccid cock, and sighed, trying to relax, closing his eyes and imaging his gorgeous boyfriend laying beside him. Kurt felt the first touch of the Rhodesian’s tongue flicking over the head of his cock and jumped. It was different, rough and hot and a little dry. Kurt tried to relax into it, tried to focus on just the feeling of a tongue lapping at his cock and not focusing on the fact that the tongue belonged to a dog. After two dozen or so lazy licks, Kurt still wasn’t even half-hard and he could hear the Rhodesian growl.

“I’m sorry, Sebastian,” Kurt groaned. “This is just a little strange, that’s all.”

The dog stood up and readjusted, settling between Kurt’s legs. He nosed behind one of Kurt’s knees, and then the other, until Kurt’s legs were bent with his feet flat on the mattress. Kurt scoffed, rolling his eyes. Boyfriend or not, he was still taking orders from a dog.

“Alright, Bas,” Kurt said, peeking down at the dog that looked back expectantly at him. “What now?”

The ridgeback licked with his broad, flat tongue from between the crack of Kurt’s ass, over his balls, up his cock – all power and little finesse, but it didn’t matter. That tongue, wide and long, seemed to be in three places at once, and Kurt moaned after that one touch.

“OhmyGod!” he whined when the dog licked him again, yipping happily when Kurt became hard in an instant.

“Yeah, yeah, you’re brilliant…just, do that again,” Kurt muttered, reaching between his legs to grab at the scruff of the dog’s neck. “Just…keep doing that before I start thinking about this too much.”

The dog snuffled in a way that sounded like Sebastian chuckling, but he went back to licking flat stripes from Kurt’s puckered entrance, over his balls, all the way up his cock. Kurt shivered with each pass, clawing at the pillow beneath his head.

“Oh God, Sebastian!” Kurt cried, arching his back. The dog’s tongue wound around Kurt’s shaft, lapping and caressing while Kurt moaned shamelessly, his hands grabbing roughly at the scruff of the dog’s neck.

“Yes…yes….yes…” Kurt chanted, feeling his hips shudder, his whole body building with heat, successfully pushing aside the revulsion of having oral sex with a dog. Kurt was close to cumming, and beneath his hands he felt the dog’s silky fur change into smooth, human skin; the tongue around his cock becoming smaller and the mouth that circled him wetter. Sebastian took Kurt into his mouth, his human mouth, and swallowed around him, growling with what was left of the animal in him. Kurt bucked and cursed and came down Sebastian’s throat, threading his fingers through Sebastian’s hair and tugging hard.

“Oh God…oh God…” Kurt continued to moan as he came down from his high, still with Sebastian’s mouth completely engulfing his rapidly softening cock. Sebastian chuckled a bit as Kurt disentangled his fingers from his boyfriend’s hair.

“Did you like that, gorgeous?” Sebastian asked, crawling up Kurt’s body to talk to him for the first time all afternoon.

“Yeah,” Kurt panted, letting Sebastian claim his lips, tasting himself on Sebastian’s tongue. “What made you change back?”

“I…may have gotten a little jealous,” Sebastian admitted, kissing Kurt again and again until he was nearly breathless. “I like that, but you’re mine. No one else gets to have you. Not even my dog.”

“So, does that mean we’re not going to do that again?” Kurt asked, sounding and feeling oddly disappointed.

“I didn’t say that,” Sebastian said, tracing down his cheek with gentle fingertips.

“So what did you want to do now?” Kurt said, wrapping his arms around his boyfriend and holding him tight.

“Well, I was kind of hoping it was my turn to get licked,” Sebastian whined into Kurt’s ear.

“But I’m not a dog,” Kurt said. “I might not be as good as you.”

Sebastian rolled his eyes, pinching Kurt’s chin with his thumb and forefinger.

“I think your pretty little mouth will do just fine,” Sebastian said, pecking a quick kiss to Kurt’s lips and pushing him by his shoulders down his body.

 


	145. Don't Mess With My Dog

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kind of campy, kind of cute and fluffy - from the shapeshifter verse that includes 'Man's Best Friend' and 'Once You Go Ridgeback…' Kurt taking Sebastian on a walk and what happens when an overbearing man starts flirting with Kurt and won’t take no for an answer.

“When we get home, we’ll take a long, hot shower,” Kurt said, teeth chattering. He wraps one arm around his torso, his whole body shivering against the cold within his wool coat. “And I’ll make us some nice, hot soup.”

Sebastian, trotting along quickly alongside his master (since that was what Sebastian considered Kurt when he was with him in his dog form) looked back at Kurt with sympathetic green eyes, snuffling in the cold air in response.

Kurt stopped and stooped down, letting the Rhodesian crowd up against him, nuzzling against his neck.

“Thank you for coming out on a walk with me, though,” Kurt whispered against the dog’s neck. “Next time I’ll listen when you tell me it’s too freakin’ cold.”

“That’s a beautiful dog you’ve got there,” a deep, flirty voice spoke down to Kurt where he knelt, wrapped up in affectionate licks and yips from his gorgeous boyfriend in the form of a Rhodesian Ridgeback. Kurt didn’t respond right away, too caught up in Sebastian’s warm breath against his cheek until the man cleared his throat, obnoxiously commanding Kurt’s attention. Kurt looked up, eyes meeting the dark gaze of a tall, muscular man staring at him with an amused half-smile on his lips – a condescending amused half-smile.

“Thank you,” Kurt said, scratching Sebastian one last time behind the ears before standing again. “He’s one of a kind.”

“He’s a Rhodesian,” the man scoffed, “they’re not rare. I’ve trained over a dozen of them in my lifetime. But its owner, I must say,” he said with a long, leering look down Kurt’s body, “is exceptional.”

Kurt ignored the compliment, glancing down at Sebastian who looked back up at him, doing the dog equivalent of rolling his eyes.

“Though I must admit he has unique eyes for a Rhodesian.” The man sounded baffled. He stared at Sebastian, scrutinizing the dog that stood protectively by Kurt’s side. “Well, he can’t be a pure-blooded Rhodesian then,” the man concluded with an annoying, superior tut.

“Excuse me, sir,” Kurt said, pulling himself to his full height, which he was happy to see was an inch taller than the ignoramus in front of him, “my dog happens to come from a royal bloodline.”

“Huh, I’d like to see his papers,” the man challenged.

Kurt shook his head.

“Good for you,” Kurt said, “but if you don’t mind we have somewhere we need to be.”

Kurt moved to the side to walk around the man, but he sidestepped back in front of them. Sebastian stepped in front of Kurt and growled low, his hackles bristling.

“My name is Cyrus, by the way,” the man said, ignoring Sebastian’s obvious warning and extending a hand for Kurt to take.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Kurt warned in a dangerous tone, keeping both hands locked on Sebastian’s leash. “My dog’s not exactly tame, and he doesn’t like men.”

“Then you should muzzle him in public.”

“I don’t have to,” Kurt spoke through clenched teeth, “because nobody usually bothers us.”

“Or you know what? You should bring him by my studio. We can train that right out of him.” Cyrus glared into Sebastian’s eyes, almost daring the threatening dog to attack him.

“I don’t want to train it out of him,” Kurt countered, tugging back gently on the leash and taking a step back, Sebastian following suit, his eyes never leaving Cyrus’s face.

“Oh, so you’re one of those types, huh?” Cyrus said, advancing regardless of how many times Kurt stepped away.

“What type?” he sneered, not particularly interested in Cyrus’s opinion, but eager to find a way around him. Every time Kurt stepped to the left or right, Cyrus blocked his way, and as much as he would love to see Sebastian rip this guy apart, he didn’t want to deal with the repercussions of being reported to animal control.

“The type that can’t manage a relationship with a _real_ man, so you buy a dog and treat it like…what? Your child or your husband?” Cyrus narrowed his eyes and looked at the way Kurt stood with the dog wedged between them. “I’m guessing husband.” Cyrus winked suggestively, and Kurt suddenly felt dirty at the implication…an implication that was right on the money as it turned out.

“Look,” Kurt said firmly, “I don’t know who the hell you think you are, but this conversation is over.” Kurt stepped back and to the side but Cyrus slipped in front of him again. Kurt’s face flushed red. “I’m warning you, if you don’t leave us alone I’ll…”

“You’ll what?” Cyrus drawled, leaning over Sebastian again to talk into Kurt’s ear. “Sic your dog on me? If that dog even thinks about touching me, I’ll have him impounded so fast…”

A familiar trickling sound caught Kurt’s attention, and he laughed even before Cyrus leapt away.

“Jesus fucking Christ!” Cyrus yelled, hopping away on one foot. Kurt could plainly see the dark, wet stain spreading up the man’s pant leg and his soaked, once white sock, stained a dingy yellow.

“I warned you,” Kurt said. “You were blocking our way and he really had to go.”

Sebastian didn’t wait another second. He took off, pulling Kurt along behind him, his lowered tail twitching to the left in anger. Sebastian dragged Kurt through a puddle, nearly ruining his suede shoes, but for once Kurt could care less. Sebastian was heading straight for their loft and Kurt knew what would happen the second they got there.

Kurt barely slid the door shut and the dog was on him, standing up on his hind legs and pinning Kurt against the wall, muzzle transforming quickly into human lips and tongue, deliciously chill and still smelling of the cold New York air while the rest of Sebastian’s body changed, auburn fur morphing back into human skin in a wave down Sebastian’s back. This was the part of Sebastian’s transformation Kurt loved most; that within the body of the beautiful dog was his even more beautiful, _naked_ boyfriend, hot and ready whenever Kurt wanted him.

“God,” Sebastian moaned, his lips blazing a trail of fiery kisses down Kurt’s neck, his arms winding around his trim waist, hands sliding into the back pockets of Kurt’s jeans, “what an ass.”

“Are you talking about mine?” Kurt giggled past a moan. “Or are you talking about Cyrus?”

“Kurt,” Sebastian scolded without looking up from the bruise he was sucking into the skin over Kurt’s collarbone, “don’t talk about it. I don’t want to lose my hard-on.”

“Did you have to pee on him, though?” Kurt chuckled.

“Next time I see him I’m going to bite him, impound or no,” Sebastian said, rolling his hips against Kurt’s body and undoing the buttons of his shirt.

“I’ll bite him myself,” Kurt moaned, turning his neck so Sebastian could mark the other side. “Nobody messes with my dog.”


	146. What Connects Me to You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A/N: For the anon prompt 'destiny'. After a horrible fight, Kurt breaks off his engagement with Blaine, and wakes up the next morning with a red string wrapped around his finger which he thinks might lead him to his fate. Romance, fluff. Warning for language and mention of Blaine/Klaine.

Kurt can’t sleep.

It’s not that he doesn’t want to sleep, because he does.

He wants to sleep but he can’t.

He has a pretty accurate biological clock so he knows he has to be up in about ten minutes anyway, but he was really hoping to squeeze as much sleep into every last second of those ten minutes that he could.

A persistent, annoying tugging on his left ring finger is doing its best to rob him of those last ten minutes and pry him out of bed. His finger, which till last night wore a platinum engagement band, twitches erratically as something tightens around it, and the first thing that immediately jumps to his mind is Blaine.

Motherfucking Blaine trying to shove that Godforsaken ring back on his finger.

“Blaine,” Kurt groans, running thin on patience and thoroughly unamused, “I told you last night that it’s over. Now get the fuck out of my apartment.”

The tugging continues, completely undeterred by his anger. In fact, at one point, the pulling becomes stronger.

“Blaine!” Kurt screams at nearly full voice. Kurt rolls onto his back, eyes squeezed shut, and swipes at the air. He’s not in the mood to see Blaine right now, but he has no problem punching him in the neck. “I told you, I’m sick of the cheating and I’m sick of the lying! Now get out of my apartment before I shove that ring down your throat!”

When his hand doesn’t connect with anything, Kurt sits straight up in bed and opens his eyes.

He’s in his room alone. No sign of Blaine anywhere; no sign that he’s even been there this morning.

Whatever is toying with him gives one last hard pull on his finger, and Kurt jumps. He pulls his hand out from beneath his comforter and looks at his finger. No ring. Instead there’s a red string tied in place of the ring. Kurt turns his hand, looking it over top and bottom and sees that the string has a tail that spills down over his hand and onto his comforter, traveling the length of his bed and then disappearing over the edge to the floor. The red string twitches and Kurt slams his right hand over it to stop it. The vibrations from his hand carry down the line of string in a shallow wave and he wonders if whoever is at the other end of the string felt it move.

Still not convinced that this isn’t some silly half-assed romantic ploy of Blaine’s to win him over, Kurt climbs out of bed to follow the string and see where it leads. He picks up the loose portion and winds it around his hand as he goes. The string winds through his hallway to his front door. Kurt stops, his eyes staring at the point where the string feeds beneath the door, and he suddenly gets the feeling that this whole act is absurd. This has to be Blaine’s doing; Kurt knows it. After following this stupid string down to the front stoop of his apartment building where Blaine has spent the whole night, wide awake to prove his undying loyalty, there will follow hours of uncomfortable apologizing and reminiscing which will most likely result in Kurt giving in just to end the agony for a little while longer.

Well, he can’t do it. Not again. A wicked smile curls his lips as he considers cutting the string. As the thought enters his head, and plans to fish out his sewing shears and snip the thing off his finger formulate the string sputters frantically, dancing around as if it knows. It knows Kurt plans on cutting it. Kurt chuckles and rolls his eyes, but the tugging that he can only describe as panicked unsettles him.

“Alright,” he mutters out loud, “I won’t cut you, you stupid thing.”

The words tumble from Kurt’s mouth in a mumbled rush and the string immediately goes still.

Kurt gasps.

The string is slack. Kurt gives it an experimental tug and waits. After a few minutes, the string tugs back.

Kurt sighs. String or no string he should go back to bed, but curiosity is eating him alive as the pulling begins again. Kurt slips on his house shoes, not stylish but sturdy, and without even taking a moment to change clothes or put on a jacket, he opens his door and continues the trail outside, through another hallway and down a few flights of stairs until he’s out onto the street.

The sun, unusually high in the sky for five in the morning, drives the chill from Kurt’s unprotected skin, but his attention stays fixed on the string cutting along the grey cement like a tiny river. Down one street and up another, around a corner and across a street, until the string takes him to a bus stop where the bus sits waiting for him. Kurt climbs on board and puts his hand in his pocket, searching for his metro card, but the bus driver waves him away and Kurt follows the string to a seat near the back where the string sits gathered in a small pool. Kurt takes one last peek out the front windshield of the bus as the large vehicle starts to move. The bus pulls onto the main road and Kurt can see the string stretched out ahead of it, trailed over the dark asphalt.

Kurt picks up the pile of string from the seat and sits beside a petite white-haired woman staring out the window at the cars and buildings passing by. She turns and watches him fiddle with the wound pile of string unwinding swiftly in his lap as the bus drives on.

“Where are you headed, dear?” the old lady asks, looking up into his eyes with a soft smile.

“I’m following this red thread,” Kurt says, holding up his hand and showing her the string tied to his finger. “Where are you headed?”

“Oh, I’m going home,” she says, looking over the red thread, her eyes following it as it pulls through the door of the bus. “You know, some cultures believe that people who are destined to be together are connected by a red thread. It’s called the red string of fate.”

“Have you seen one before?” Kurt asks.

“Yup,” she says, nodding. “In fact, my grandson has one on his finger right now. He just can’t see it yet, and unfortunately I won’t be around when he does.”

Kurt nods, a little bounce of his head as he looks at the older woman’s serene expression. Her words sadden him, but he’s not entirely sure why. She turns to stare back out the window at the stop ahead.

“Do you believe it?” Kurt asks.

The old lady shrugs.

“I think it’s a beautiful idea,” she confesses. “I guess the important question is do _you_ believe it. You’re the one with the string on your finger.”

The bus pulls to the curb, and the old woman puts a hand on Kurt’s knee.

“I believe this is your stop, dear,” the lady says, pointing to the red thread continuing out the door.

“Thank you for your help, uh…”

“Marjorie,” the woman says with a smile, reaching out her hand for Kurt to shake.

“Kurt.”

“I know, dear,” she says, gesturing to the door with her chin. “You had better get going.”

Kurt walks to the open bus door and steps outside, taking one last look at the smiling older lady with the startling green eyes shooing him with her hands to get on his way.

The bus leaves him off in front of a tall building, and Kurt knows right away he’s uptown, but how he traveled from Bushwick to uptown Manhattan in the space of ten minutes he’ll never understand. He follows the string past the doorman and other bustling people who don’t even glance in his direction as he walks by, which he finds kind of odd considering he’s dressed in his pajamas and following a red thread. It’s almost as if no one else can see it but him…and Marjorie. Maybe only those who believe can see.

The thread takes him to the elevator and when he walks in he sees it wrapped around the button for the 15th floor. Kurt presses the button, a sense of urgency surrounding him, the premonition something inevitable is on the horizon and he needs to get to the end of the string quick before he loses what he came here for.

His future.

His forever.

The doors barely open and he slips through, pulling on the thread, holding tight with both hands as if it is his anchor, drawing him to the place where he actually belongs. Ahead of him is a door with the red string vanishing underneath. He can see it clear as day, as well as the bronze numbers screwed into the wood.

_1522_

Kurt reaches a fist out to the door, preparing to knock, but the door is already opening. A light from inside floods the hall and for the first time he notices that he’s been standing in darkness.

Darkness in the middle of the morning?

Then he notices that the light isn’t coming from the room beyond the door; it’s coming from the man’s crescent moon smile, gleaming and perfect and warm, like the sunlight on Kurt’s face. Kurt can’t make out any of his more distinct features, but for now that doesn’t matter.

“Hello?” Kurt’s mouth clamps tight around the word, his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth as if it’s covered in glue. The man’s smile grows wider, and he opens his mouth to say hello back.

_Bzzz. Bzzz._

Kurt’s eyebrows shoot up in confusion at the sound.

“I’m sorry,” Kurt mumbles, his own mouth refusing to cooperate. “Can you repeat that?”

_Bzzz. Bzzz._

Kurt shakes his head as the door starts to close.

“I…wait? I can’t quite… No, please. Don’t go away!”

But the door is already closed shut, and when the tumblers of the lock fall back into place, Kurt flies backward into the elevator – no, not flying, he’s traveling in reverse, rewinding like a movie, relaying the gathered thread, until he’s walking backward up the steps to his apartment and climbing into bed.

Kurt tries to gain some control but it’s impossible since he never had it to begin with.

The alarm goes off one final time.

_Bzzz. Bzzz._

Kurt’s eyes snap open.

He’s in bed again.

Alone and awake, this time for real.

_Bzzz. Bzzz._

He reaches over and picks up his cell phone, the alarm buzzing away like an angry hornet. He switches it off before it can buzz one final time, and slams it back in place. Kurt’s eyes sweep the room, starting with the open door and working his way to his bed, but there’s no sign of a red string anywhere. He looks over his comforter, pulling up the ends and shaking the thing out, even tossing it completely off his body, but there isn’t a red fiber to be seen.

He sighs, trying to convince himself that he’s relieved it was all a dream. A crazy, break-up induced dream.

Kurt runs his fingers through his hair, dropping his head into his hand.

Something tickles his face.

He opens his eyes, reaching up to sweep his bangs off his forehead when he spots it – a deep flash of red. Kurt sits motionless, busy convincing himself that it’s the last traces of the dream playing tricks with his mind. He pulls his hand away from his face and looks at his finger, fully prepared to mock himself for his own foolishness, but he can’t.

Tied around his finger like a thin little ring is a piece of red string.

It’s tied there as a reminder that maybe it was all a dream, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t real; that there isn’t really someone at the end of that red string waiting for him.

Either way, Kurt’s determined to find out. He hops out of bed, slips on his shoes, and races out the door, again dressed only in his pajamas.

He can’t waste time changing.

Destiny waits for no one.

It looks as though destiny might even be on his side in his adventure. As soon as he races from his building he spots a cab by the curb and jumps in, sure he has shoved some frail old man aside, but in a very un-Kurt Hummel fashion he couldn’t care less.

“Where to?” the cabby asks with a queer smirk and now Kurt’s sure he shoved some poor old guy out of the way.

“The Avalon. Upper East Side.” The words come out as if they were waiting to be spoken.

Kurt’s rational brain knows this is all ludicrous. He knows that the dream and the red ring of string are simply ways his mind has chosen to cope with the emotionally draining events of last night. He probably tied the string to his finger before Blaine showed up to remind himself to buy milk in the morning, and the fight they had caused him to forget.

Even though he’s an intelligent man and knows all of this, he fidgets in his seat with excitement.

The cab seems to hit traffic on every single street, and a trip that should have taken thirty minutes at the most has already lasted over an hour. Trapped behind some massive gridlock, Kurt can see the Avalon looming overhead, and he can’t sit any longer.

“I’m getting out,” he yells louder than necessary, pulling his wallet out of his pocket, amazed that he remembered it this time, and throwing a few twenties in the front seat beside the driver. He’s sure he’s overpaid by at least forty dollars, but he bolts out of the cab and takes off down the street on foot, the whole time chanting in his head, “This is crazy, this is crazy, this is crazy.”

His mind fills with pictures of him racing up to apartment 1522, knocking on the door, and being greeted by the confused and slightly frightened stares of a cute old couple while he tries to explain that he had a dream that his future lay somewhere behind their front door. As the daydream gets more vivid, with images of him being arrested as he yells, “It’s okay! Marjorie believes in me!”, he manages to blow past the doorman and make it to the elevator without anyone stopping him.

He stops and stares at the elevator he’s locked in. It looks the same – exactly the same as his dream. He pushes the button to the 15th floor and tries to recall any time he’d ever been to the Avalon, even for a moment, maybe just to use the bathroom.

With the exception of last night, he can’t remember a single time.

Suddenly, his heart starts to pound.

He watches the lights on the elevator number panel bounce from button to button, his whole body shaking in anticipation of the moment when it would land on fifteen. The doors slide open and he slips out, barreling straight toward apartment 1522 with his arm outstretched.

Here’s his moment. His brain screams at him to stop but his body hasn’t gotten the message yet because he’s at the door now knocking like a mad man, his heart leaping, every cell in his body telling him without a shadow of a doubt that this is where he belongs.

The door swings open and a man steps out, wearing a stunning black Armani suit along with a wolfish grin on his otherwise startled face. Kurt’s smile dies and his racing heart stops short as he finds himself staring into the glowing green eyes of the last man he ever thought he would see in New York.

Sebastian Smythe.

Kurt stumbles backward a step, wondering if he’s going to be magically sucked back into the elevator, but he has no such luck.

“Well, well, princess,” Sebastian says, looking Kurt up and down without shame or apology, “long time no see.”

“Oh fucking hell,” Kurt breathes through numb lips. Sebastian pulls back a bit at Kurt’s response.

“Hello and good morning to you, too,” Sebastian chuckles. “May I ask what you’re doing here? I mean, I thought we had a doorman downstairs to keep people like you out.”

“I think I’m here to see your roommate?” Kurt asks hopefully. “Or brother? Or cousin?”

_Please fictional demigod, let someone else live here._

Sebastian shakes his head, his smile dipping at the edges at Kurt’s desperation.

“Nope. No one here but little old me, and as much as I would like to shoot the shit and reminisce, I kind of have a funeral to go to, so if you don’t mind…” Sebastian makes a shooing motion with his hands that pricks Kurt with an inescapable feeling of déjà vu, but he doesn’t take the time to mull through it. When Kurt doesn’t leave right away, Sebastian crosses his arms and watches the show of emotions on Kurt’s face as they go from disbelief to embarrassment and finally disappointment.

“I…I kind of got a message to meet someone here,” Kurt explains quietly, explaining it more to himself than to Sebastian and frowning when he realizes it doesn’t make any more sense out loud than it did in his head. “I guess I was wrong. I’m sorry I…interrupted…I’m sorry for your loss.”

“No b. d., but thanks,” Sebastian says with a shrug, but Kurt can tell that Sebastian’s more bothered than he’s letting on. Kurt knows the face of grief when he sees it. He nods and gives Sebastian a wave as he turns to leave. With his back to him Kurt misses how Sebastian’s eyes suddenly widen when he catches sight of Kurt’s hand.

“Uh, Kurt?” Sebastian calls after him. Kurt stops and turns, his hand still hovering in the air.

“What?”

“What’s that?”

Sebastian points to Kurt’s hand, his face drawn, becoming paler by the second. Kurt looks at his hand, having completely forgotten about the piece of red string tied around his ring finger.

“Oh, this?” Kurt says, pulling his hand behind his back to hide the string, knowing it was too late and he was about to get ribbed from Egypt and back for having it on his finger. “It’s…I tied it there to remember…to buy milk, on my way home.”

If Kurt could have face-planted without Sebastian noticing, he would have. As it is, he’s making plans to do it the second he gets back to the elevator as punishment for being such a disaster under stress.

“Is that so?” Sebastian bites his lip and looks thoughtfully at the arm tucked behind Kurt’s back.

“That’s right,” Kurt says in defense of his lie that Sebastian isn’t buying. “Why?”

“Well…” Sebastian steps out into the hallway and raises his own left hand for Kurt to see. Kurt’s mouth drops, his stopped heart stuttering to race again as his eyes fall on a bright red piece of string tied in a knot around Sebastian’s ring finger, “I think you and I might have something to talk about.”

 

 


	147. What Connects You to Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I was asked to write a continuation to 'What Connects Me to You', but from Sebastian’s POV. So here it is. Warnings for death of an OC and mention of sex. (You may want to re-read the first part so you can see how the events meet up.)

Duffel thrown over one shoulder, carrying his coat in the crook of his bent arm, Sebastian races through the gate and onto the tarmac. The private jet he chartered last minute to get to New York City sits with the hatch open and the stairs extended, waiting for him to arrive. It’s a little past three in the morning and he knows that they won’t get clearance to leave for at least another half hour, so running really doesn’t move anything along or matter in the slightest, but it feels like doing something, like accomplishing something. If he’s running instead of walking then he’s getting to his destination faster.

When he hits the stairs he takes them two at a time with his singular piece of luggage in tow. The harsh light inside the plane – bright white and unforgiving compared to the serene dark outside, fuels his blinding headache, but he ignores the way his eyes sting and his head spins. He settles down into a leather seat and tries to relax. He waves away a stewardess offering him a drink and closes his eyes, breathing slowly in and out, in and out, but it’s no use. His whole body buzzes with a need to be in the air.

Sebastian detests New York. His friends in high school always talked about it like it was the ultimate goal; the end all be all, most likely because they had spent their whole lives in Ohio, and New York seemed like the pinnacle of ‘making it’ in life. But for Sebastian, New York is too loud, too dirty, and way too crowded. Living there, even in his towering penthouse far above the unceasing bustle of the city, he never found a moment of quiet, never any peace, never enough room to breathe.

He much prefers to spend his time at the Smythe family estate in France – quiet, quaint, out of the way, nestled in the hills of the lush, green countryside but close enough to Paris that he can always find any type of diversion, day or night, along with plenty of young men to fill his every sordid need.

He doesn’t want to go back. In fact, it’s essential for his sanity that he stay out of the states. He’s burned too many bridges, both personally and professionally for returning to even be a viable option for his life. There’s only one person he would return for, one person he loves enough that he would endure doing the one thing that he really doesn’t relish doing - facing his mother and father. He had expected the call eventually, but not now. It’s too soon. He needed time to fix everything. He had intended on making things right, but he never got the chance.

Missed opportunities and good intentions; the story of Sebastian Smythe’s life.

Now he gets to step into the fray, a day late and a dollar short.

It seems like such a stupid ass expression, but right now, heels tapping against the floor because his legs can’t seem to stop moving as he waits for the Goddamned plane to get into the air, he finally realizes what it means.

There is no real way he can mend things. He just has to make it better.

The flight to New York is long – painfully, gut-wrenchingly, mind-warpingly long, and during the whole trip he can only think one thing; he’s too late. He should have been there earlier but now it’s too late, and not only did he miss his chance, but he broke his promise.

Some guardian he turned out to be.

***

Sebastian loves his grandmother, more than any other human being in his whole world. Her kindness, compassion, and generosity shaped him throughout his life. She was the soul of everything his parents should have been but weren’t. She treated him like he was the smartest, most talented, most amazing boy on the planet. She always listened when he spoke, attended every lacrosse game, every show choir competition. No matter what was important in his life, his grandmother supported him. She stood by him. As she got older, he envied her independence and energy. She traveled the world alone, went bungee jumping, skydiving, parasailing; she didn’t seem to be afraid of anything. Age never truly slowed her down, but her declining health did, and when she got older but still aware enough to take care of her own affairs, she named Sebastian her guardian, her power of attorney, and the executor of her estate.

She didn’t seem afraid of anything, except that his father might stick her in some dilapidated nursing home to wither away and die, strapped to a bed when dementia finally set in.

Sebastian swore that he would spend every cent of his trust fund if he had to in order make sure that didn’t happen.

Then something unexpected happened; Sebastian’s parents suddenly remembered they had a son; a son with more faults than they could count, who enjoyed a lifestyle that doesn’t necessarily fit in with their white collar, country club ideals. They turned friends against him, allies, even lovers. They picked and prodded, persecuted and threatened until Sebastian couldn’t stand it any longer.

Sebastian didn’t think of escaping the country as surrendering or running away, but as a necessary evil to avoid him finally breaking down and hiring out a professional hit on Donna and Andrew Smythe.

After the rift between him and his parents became impossibly wide, too wide to ever sew together, he left the states, but only for the time being, until things cooled down and words that couldn’t be taken back blew over he explained, and his grandmother understood, even if secretly in her heart she knew how this would all play out. He swore that he would be there to take care of her. Like so many promises he made to so many people, he broke this one. She didn’t hold it against him, which was probably the best and worst part about it. She didn’t want her young grandson to stop living his life because he had signed a few pieces of paper.

Besides, she was well aware of how much of an ass her son and his wife could be.

Sebastian did sincerely have every intention of sending for her and bringing her out to spend her last days in the countryside with him when she felt it was time, but fate stepped in and destroyed his plan by accelerating her condition to the point where she was hospitalized immediately.

Again his parents stepped in, this time remembering that the matriarch of the family was dying, and that stipulations to her will needed to be revised and contested, a task that should be easy since the only person who could stop them hadn’t been heard from in years. They wasted no time isolating her in a secure hospital of their choosing, distancing her from all of her friends which included firing her private nurse.

Antoinette Beauchamp, best friend and oldest confidante to Marjorie Isabella Bonnet Smythe, did not take being let go by the overbearing and boorish Andrew Smythe lightly. The first thing she did once the ambulance carrying poor, confused, and frightened Marjorie drove away was pull out her cell phone and call the only person who could possibly help her.

***

Sebastian’s jet touches down at the airport around noon. He’s greeted at the terminal by a welcoming committee that consists of lawyers he hired by phone overseas, all in nearly matching suits and carrying identical briefcases, wearing Ray-Ban sunglasses even though it’s foggy as hell and mostly overcast. Sebastian smirks. He hired the Men in Black to rescue his grandmother. When did Sebastian Smythe become a man surrounded by lawyers on retainer? That man was his father, not him.

He’d hang himself from the nearest tree if he thought he was becoming anything like his dad.

In a rampant flurry of activity, Sebastian is ushered out to a waiting car, briefed in surround sound by all five lawyers along the way, handed more papers to sign, and when he’s settled in the backseat of the rented luxury vehicle he’s offered a bottle of water and a turkey sandwich. He eschews going to his penthouse for a hot shower or a change of clothing, and heads straight for the hospital, instructing the driver not to worry about the lights.

He’s already wasted enough time.

Highland Hospital is about as first class as one can get, and in retrospect if Sebastian had to pick a place in the city to care for his grandmother this would most likely be it. As the driver pulls up out front to let him and his team out, Sebastian feels only a slight pang of guilt that he’s about to storm it like the Bastille.

They march like a battalion up to the geriatrics department where Marjorie Smythe is being kept, hidden under the name ‘Malorie Smith’, the pseudonym she used to use for fun when the family took vacations together once upon a time. Sebastian smiles with the memory as he finds the room, blowing by nurses frantically waving for his attention, and barges in. The room is pristine, sterile, cold; the walls painted pure white and everything matches from the linens on the bed to the cabinets and the curtains. It’s enough to give Sebastian an even larger headache than he already had. It physically makes him sick. It’s everything an exorbitant hospital room should be to house an elderly woman whose family is simply waiting for her to die. His mother and father sit at her bedside, and to any outside observer passing by they look like the picture of a devoted family holding vigil, but Sebastian sees them for what they are: vultures waiting for her to pass on so they can call the lawyers and cut the checks.

If they want their money, they’ll get their money, but not today.

Sebastian pushes past his father where he’s sitting, reading an article from CNN on his iPhone, and hovers protectively over his grandmother, brushing a few snowy white locks from her forehead. Her eyelids flutter with the gentle touch, and slowly start to open.

“Mamy,” Sebastian whispers softly. “Mamy, open your eyes.”

Marjorie’s green eyes, still clear, brimming with intelligence, look up at her grandson, opening wider with childlike awe when she sees his face. She raises a hand to touch him, to feel his clothes and trace the lines of exhaustion beneath his eyes, making sure it’s really him standing above her and not a dream.

“You’re here,” she says.

“I’m sorry I’m late.” His smile brightens when he speaks even though his voice is thick with tears.

“That’s okay, my beautiful boy,” she chirps excitedly. “As long as you’re here.” She glances from side to side, eying the annoyed faces of her son and daughter-in-law, and grimaces. “These awful people are waiting for me to die, but I won’t give them the satisfaction.”

“That’s my girl,” Sebastian says with a chuckle. “I’m going to take you home.”

“Now see here,” his father interrupts, grabbing at Sebastian’s coat and trying to pull him away. Sebastian bristles at the touch, shrugging the hand from his shoulder with a violent shake. He refuses to be bullied by his father, not with his grandmother’s life at stake. Sebastian stands straight and tall, his true height a good head above his father’s. Sebastian glares down at the self-righteous man, but opts not to speak, instead motioning to one of his Men in Black to step over and explain why none of his dad’s impotent arguments are going to mean shit in the long run.

His father doesn’t want to back down, but after hearing words like ‘lawsuit’ and ‘breach of contract’ thrown at him, he reluctantly steps to the side to continue the conversation with more than a veiled interest, especially if he’s about to be sued. From out of thin air a doctor materializes at Sebastian’s side, less intimidated by the army of lawyers than his father.

“I’m sorry, sir,” the man says, his voice carrying a heavy accent Sebastian knows but can’t exactly place, “I’m going to need you to leave. This patient…”

“Don’t leave me,” Marjorie squeaks, putting a hand on Sebastian’s arm and squeezing as tightly as her frail fingers can manage. Sebastian looks over his shoulder, smiling down at his grandmother with a wobbly grin and watery eyes.

“Never,” he says. “Never again.”

Another lawyer magically appears, handing the doctor one of several packets of paperwork which outlines Sebastian’s authority in the matters of Marjorie Smythe, down to the tiniest detail.

“I don’t understand,” the doctor says, flipping through the multitude of pages which include a living will and a DNR. “But isn’t that gentleman…”

“Yes,” Sebastian sneers, looking past the man in the white coat to lock glares with his father, “technically that man is her son, but I am her legal guardian. Her will stipulates that she doesn’t wish to spend her last days in a hospital. I have a private ambulance service waiting outside, and I’m taking her home with me.”

“I’m sorry,” the doctor says, looking over the paperwork one last time with a shake of his head, “but I can’t release…”

Sebastian sighs, loud and long and with enough condescension that it shuts the doctor’s argument down completely. He knows that there is really nothing this doctor can do to keep him from taking his grandmother home. Even if by some miracle this man had a judge in his back pocket that could stay his hand, Sebastian had one, too. Several, actually, on speed dial, and he is certain that they are bigger and nastier than any this doctor or this whole hospital can conjure up. But he doesn’t have that kind of time, so he decides this once to try and appeal to the man’s better nature.

“Doctor,” Sebastian says, dropping his voice so the other ears in the room can’t hear his impassioned discussion, “there’s nothing you can do for my grandmother. She has a DNR in place and with her diabetes and advanced heart disease she doesn’t have any organs worth taking.” Sebastian looks into the doctor’s weary brown eyes. “She doesn’t want to die in a hospital. It’s her wish. Please, don’t make me go through crazy lengths to fulfill my grandmother’s wishes.”

Sebastian waits, a whole slew of perfectly legal threats on standby, but the doctor drops his head and relents.

“Give me a minute to grab her file,” he says, “so I can give you instructions on how to keep her comfortable.”

“Thank you,” Sebastian says, but the doctor walks away quickly, taking the paperwork and leaving the room.

“Sebastian!” his mother scolds, crowding into his personal space as if she has the right, with a manicured finger pointed accusingly in his face. “You can’t do this. Your grandmother needs special care.”

“Which she will get,” Sebastian says, ignoring the petty woman and turning his attention back to his grandmother, who stares up at him with unabashed joy, “with me. Now you may go.”

“I will not be dismissed by you, young man,” his mother roars. “Who the hell do you think you’re talking to?”

“The Wicked Witch of the West?” he retorts smoothly, and his grandmother giggles like a little girl.

“You watch yourself!” Donna barks, finger coming dangerously close to Sebastian’s cheek.

“Or what?” Sebastian says, completely nonplussed and frankly done with his mother for the rest of his life. “You can’t touch me. You can’t touch either of us. So why don’t you do what you do best and ignore us? Go shopping. Get drunk. It’s five o’clock somewhere.”

The doctor comes back in and hands Sebastian a stack of paperwork of his own, mostly liability waivers, and without a word more his mother’s existence is effectively forgotten. The ambulance driver and an EMT follows and loads Marjorie onto a gurney, preparing to whisk her away from the clutches of the evil trolls who stare on in bitter silence as their cash cow rolls away.

“I demand you tell us where you’re taking her,” his mother calls out, tailing the party out into the hall.

“Yes,” his father agrees albeit half-heartedly, “I demand to know where you’re taking my mother.”

“Don’t worry, dad,” Sebastian says without bothering to stop or turn around. “You don’t need to worry about grandma. Your check’s in the mail.”

***

Sebastian forgoes the comfort of the luxury car and travels to the city in the back of the cramped ambulance, holding tight to his grandmother’s hand. He remembers the first time he broke his leg while he was visiting Coney Island. It was a freak accident. He was roller skating on the boardwalk when his wheels hit a corndog stick and locked up. He tripped, falling forward and landed awkwardly on a metal bench. He was scared when the ambulance came to take him away. For some reason he thought he would never see his grandmother again, but she climbed in the back and sat beside him, holding his hand the entire way.

Here they were again in much the same way. He prays his grandmother isn’t afraid like he was.

The medical technicians wheel his grandmother carefully up to his penthouse. Sebastian hasn’t had time to air the place out properly. He hasn’t actually been there in years. He opens the door, not sure what might greet them when they finally get inside, but when he turns on the lights it feels like he never left, and he’s pleasantly surprised to find that the place looks as warm and inviting as it did the last time he saw it. He instructs the men to wheel his grandmother up to the large picture windows in the living room, and there he intends her to stay, with a view of the city stretched out before her. They set up her IV and all the other various machines she needs. One of the men – a rather handsome Asian man who seems to have a special smile for Sebastian - is nice enough to walk him through the setup and use of each machine, but the minute the information enters Sebastian’s brain it seems to slip out again.

Sebastian’s muddling through, turning off alarms and fiddling with bags of clear fluid in his shaking hands when Antoinette arrives. Sebastian takes one look at her and pulls her into his arms, hugging her tight. The older woman laughs, patting him on the back, and kisses him on the cheek.

“It will be alright, young master,” she says in that thick provincial accent years of city living couldn’t seem to erase. “We will take care of her together.”

Sebastian watches Antoinette readjust the settings on the machines with ease, replacing IV bags and injecting them with medications, reading through the chart the doctor gave Sebastian and making marks on the bags with a black Sharpie in a language that looks a lot like English but that Sebastian can’t even begin to understand. He never quite realized how much work went into keeping someone alive for a few weeks longer, but he doesn’t have any regrets.

Sebastian pulls up an overstuffed armchair. He sits by his grandmother’s bed and that’s where he stays. He reads aloud from her favorite classic novels, the daily comics, articles from magazines. He tells her what the weather looks like outside. He describes his time (well, the G-rated portion of his time) in France – the museums he went to, the new restaurants he ate at, how the estate (which passed from her family to her husband’s, and eventually will pass to Sebastian) is holding up. He barely leaves her alone to eat or shower, choosing to sleep by her side in his chair instead of retiring to his luxurious king-sized bed in the master bedroom.

Antoinette begins to worry about Sebastian and tells him he needs to get out, get some fresh air, even if for an hour. She tells him it’s what Marjorie would say if she could (the older woman’s ability to speak had left her a few days after she arrived) but he refuses. She brings him a plate of eggs and bacon, and lets the matter slide with a secret grin since she knows he gets his stubbornness from Marjorie.

Sebastian has his own personal reasons for not leaving his grandmother alone; superstitious reasons that he doesn’t want to divulge to anyone. His grandmother was diagnosed with heart disease after she suffered her first major heart attack. Sebastian had been with her at the time and it scared the life out of him. He was sure he was going to lose her then and there, but she told him that even when she lost consciousness she wasn’t afraid because Sebastian had been there with her.

Marjorie knew that when she died, she was going to die alone.

Marjorie’s condition doesn’t improve during her first two weeks at Sebastian’s penthouse, but besides the loss of her voice and her penchant for sleeping longer and longer it doesn’t seem to get worse either, and Sebastian lets himself be lulled into a sense of security that he will have his grandmother with him for the remainder of the month at least. Once they get to that milestone, then he can set another one, taking things a day at a time for as long as he needs.

Now that he is more secure that he’s not about to lose her anytime soon, he begins to realize how vile and disgusting he feels. Since she’s sleeping peacefully, her heart monitor beeping in an even and steady pace, he decides to leave his grandmother’s side for his first real shower and shave.

Marjorie Smythe is a lady in every sense of the word, and a lady always knows when it’s time to leave a party. That’s what life really is after all – one big party. The one Marjorie’s living has been swell so far, but there are people waiting for her.

Sebastian takes longer in the shower than he plans, but it’s worth it to feel human again. He steps out of the bathroom dressed in a fresh polo and a comfortable pair of blue jeans, clean shaven, relaxed, and ready to face another chapter of _Mansfield Park_ when a somber Antoinette intercepts him in the hallway.

“Wh—“ is the only syllable that passes his lips. Antoinette’s brown eyes stare up at him and he takes a step back.

“But…she was fine,” Sebastian stammers. “I…I only left her for a minute. I…”

“Sebastian,” Antoinette whispers, putting a hand on his arm, “I don’t think she has much time left, so if there’s anything you want to say to her, I’d say it now.”

Sebastian swallows hard and looks past the petite nurse into the living room. From where he stands he can only see the IV pole and the head of Marjorie’s bed, and suddenly sitting by her side is the last place he wants to be, because if he’s there he’ll be watching his best friend in the world die, but if he leaves now he can fool himself into thinking that it didn’t happen. Maybe it won’t if he’s not there to witness it. He’ll leave now. He’ll run away and his grandmother will live, even if he doesn’t get to see her again.

Sebastian scolds himself for the thought.

Running away.

That seems to be what he’s best at.

He looks down at Antoinette, the smile he tries to force onto his face weak and heartbroken. He steps around her, wandering back to the living room and sitting down in his chair. His grandmother looks so small in her bed. Was she always this small? How did he not notice how tiny and delicate she was? Maybe because it didn’t matter to him. His grandmother was always strong. It didn’t matter if she was tiny. Tiny can be strong.

Sebastian doesn’t think he has anything to say, but he clears his throat anyway. It seems to open a flood gate to things he didn’t know were waiting to be said.

“I love you, mamy,” he says. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I left for so long. I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you needed me.”

Sebastian reaches out and takes his grandmother’s hand, running a thumb over the white, paper-thin skin.

“I’m sorry I wasted so much time being selfish. I’m sorry I didn’t give you a house full of rowdy great-grandkids like you wanted. There was never anyone special enough…” The words stop short in his throat as the image of one man leaps unexpectedly to mind. “Well, that isn’t exactly true,” Sebastian says with a sly but wavering smile on his lips. “I…I never told anyone, but there was one guy I met a long time ago, in high school actually. Kurt…” The name lodges in his throat and he coughs, trying his hardest not to shed any tears. “His name is Kurt. He’s married now, I think.”

Sebastian pulls his chair closer to his grandmother’s side, needing to be close to her if this is the last conversation they’re ever going to have together.

“I guess it doesn’t matter. I missed my chance. It’s not like he’s going to show up on my doorstep one day, huh?” Sebastian laughs wistfully. “Maybe…maybe I should go after him. That’s what you would do, right mamy? You wouldn’t let anything stand in your way.”

Sebastian feels his grandmother’s fingers tighten around his hand and he gasps. It’s fleeting and feeble. It’s almost like good-bye.

“I’m going to miss you, mamy,” he rushes out, breathing faster in his effort to say everything he needs to say. “I’m going to miss the sound of your laugh, and the way that you frown at me and call me ridiculous every time I do something you don’t agree with. I’m going to miss talking to you about the future. Remember when we said we were going to sail around the world? We bought a map and put pins in all the places we were going to dock. I wish I had a little more time…”

As luck would have it, that is all the time Sebastian gets.

Alarms go off.

Monitors beep.

One in particular lets out a tinny, sustained tone.

Sebastian bites his lip and nods to no one. It’s over.

He’s out of time.

He failed.

Antoinette walks in but doesn’t say a word. She starts shutting down machines, detaching monitors, making the room quiet again before retreating to the kitchen to deal with her own tears, giving Sebastian more time alone with his grandmother before the necessary unpleasantries begin.

At some point in the still and the quiet, Sebastian stands and kisses his grandmother’s cheek.

“Je t’aime tant, mamy,” he whispers in her ear, hoping that somehow she can hear. “Tu vas me manquer pour le reste de ma vie.”

***

Antoinette calls the hospital and the hospital calls the police. Sebastian doesn’t know why. Maybe it’s protocol for when someone dies at home. Maybe it’s because the doctors on staff at Highland want to be sure that the slightly unstable and disheveled man who stormed into their midst over a week ago didn’t decide to up and euthanize his grandmother when things got too tough to handle. They arrive surprisingly quickly, knocking on the door with short, rapid fire taps, and Antoinette lets them in. Sebastian doesn’t bother looking up, but he can imagine the commanding and authoritative expressions on their stern faces. The two officers introduce themselves to Antoinette and then stalk toward him.

“Mr. Smythe?” the lead officer says.

“Yes,” Sebastian replies, his voice flat and expressionless, eyes glued to his grandmother’s hand.

“We got a call that your grandmother passed away.”

Sebastian breathes in deep, letting all the acidic remarks dissolve in his throat.

“Yes,” he says again.

A pregnant pause fills the air. The officers usually have more to say but they can’t. One look at the distraught young man holding his grandmother’s hand answers their questions for them. They share a look, a practiced signal between them that needs no explanation. The second officer pulls out his phone.

“Yeah, central? I need a bus at The Avalon, Upper East Side. 1522…No, no. It was her time.”

Sebastian squeezes his eyes shut. Antoinette crosses the room and puts a hand on his shoulder.

“Don’t worry, Sebastian,” she says quietly. “It’s all better now. Your grandmother has gone home.”

Sebastian doesn’t stand up from his chair when the coroner comes and takes his grandmother’s body away. He doesn’t stand when the police hand him a copy of an incident report and their business card, along with their condolences. He doesn’t stand up when Antoinette asks him if he needs her to stay. He shakes his head.

“No,” he says. “I’ll be fine. I’m…I’m going to call the funeral home. That nice one on east 87th. I want to have her wake tomorrow.”

“Call me and let me know.” Antoinette’s own bottled up emotions finally get the best of her. “I’ll be there.”

Sebastian nods again, sitting perfectly still when Antoinette places a peck and a few tears on the crown of his head and sees herself out.

Everyone leaves and the silence takes over.

No beeping heart monitor.

No hissing oxygen tank.

No jarring warning alarms.

Sebastian is surrounded by a heavy, oppressive lack of noise that seems to chill him through and through, but he’s too tired to deal with it. Even if the angel of death himself had stayed behind to reap Sebastian as well, he can care less. He needs to stick to his original plan – get through this day and move on to the next; stick to the milestones he set in place, even if his grandmother is gone.

He busies himself with phone calls, details, ironing out all the odds and ends that no one tells you you’ll have to handle when a loved one dies. He calls the funeral director, orders a casket, has the family plot opened. He arranges for the pickup of the hospital bed he rented and all the machines, wondering if the same handsome Asian guy is going to come pick everything up. Maybe he would be willing to stop by after his shift and help Sebastian forget about all this for a little while.

The day passes and Sebastian’s only notice of it is the shadows that shrink and disappear and stretch again across the floor as the sun moves through the sky. He gets everything done in a shorter amount of time than he anticipates, and the few hiccups he does encounter he manages to overcome with a potent combination of charm and money.

By the end of the day he finds himself sitting in the armchair again, staring at the empty bed. The medical rental company had some kind of blow-out in their truck on the way over, and had to move pick up of the equipment to the day after the funeral. Sebastian almost considers staying at a hotel for the night so he doesn’t have to see it, but something keeps him tied to the penthouse, an expectation, like if he waits long enough something will happen.

Sebastian leans back and shuts his eyes, not expecting sleep to come quickly, or at all, but sleep does come in the strangest way possible – suddenly and all at once, like the flicking of a switch.

He’s locked in an unconsciousness that comes with no real rest and no desire to wake up.

He hears laughter coming from somewhere beyond his closed eyes, but he hasn’t the energy to open them. Then a voice. A familiar voice, one he hasn’t heard in the flesh for years, but that he hears almost every night in his dreams.

_Okay, well, I never really liked you, but I trust your grandmother. Maybe…maybe we should give this a chance._

Sebastian’s eyelids snap open. He sits straight up in his chair and looks around the dark room. There’s no one there with him, but the laughter lingers a little longer before fading away entirely. Sebastian grips the arms of the chair with white knuckles, and without warning his hand cramps up, his left ring finger twitching like mad. Sebastian grabs at it with his right hand, rubbing the rigid digit until he can feel the muscles start to relax again. He considers abandoning sleep for a cup of coffee and wear the night thin reading or watching some mindless t.v., but all too swiftly sleep carries him away again.

_“So, you’re trying to get me to believe that you love me? That you’ve been in love with me all this time, even though in high school you acted like you hated me?”_

_Bright blue eyes glare at him from across the table, but behind the simmer of incredulity Sebastian can see a smile hiding._

_“That’s right,” Sebastian admits._

_A pause. A moment of indecision…and then a cube of cheddar cheese tossed in Sebastian’s face._

_“Sebastian Smythe, you’re so full of shit!”_

_Another laugh, clear and refreshing like the wash of rain on a hot and muggy summer’s day._

The twinge in his hand returns, stronger than before, but it doesn’t wake him completely. Sebastian reaches over and takes his own hand, rubbing along the muscles until the twitching dies down and he can go back to sleep.

_“Really, Sebastian? The Avengers? What in the world makes you think I would actually enjoy this…wait a minute. Who’s that?”_

_“Who?”_

_“Him? The guy with the shield and that killer ass?”_

_“That would be Captain America.” Sebastian rolls his eyes and sits down on the sofa beside his besotted boyfriend. The man beside him moves close, snuggling against him, reaching into the bowl in Sebastian’s lap for a handful of popcorn._

_“Well,” he says with a devilish smile in his voice that makes Sebastian weak, “don’t knock it till you’ve tried it I always say. By the way, is that an outfit you could like…you know…rent…somewhere?”_

Sebastian opens his eyes. He must have fallen asleep at some point during the movie. It would make sense. It’s been a long day. He blinks, his eyes darting around, sleep addled and confused. He’s alone. Utterly alone, but the dream seemed so real, the laughter, the warm body by his side, even the smell of popcorn hangs in the air.

What the fuck is going on?

Sebastian makes the decision that he’s slept enough. The idea of heading off to a hotel seems more appealing than ever before, but it’s almost 5:30 in the morning. Not his preferred time to get up in the morning, but for now he’ll take it. He wants to be out and on the road by eight o’clock anyway, this way he can meet with his lawyers right after the service, cut the checks, and be on the next plane out of New York and back to his hideaway.

He showers quickly since he doesn’t need to shave. No matter how hot he makes the water, he can’t seem to relax. He considers rubbing one out, but in the end it doesn’t seem appropriate. He steps out of the shower, dries off, and mechanically he dresses in the black Armani suit he laid out hours before. He finishes tying his necktie and takes a look at the antique clock on the wall.

_6:30 a.m._

“Well, shit,” Sebastian mutters. He had hoped it was at least 7:30, then he could justify taking a leisurely walk down to the café on the corner and ordering himself some breakfast, which he probably won’t eat, but it would give him something to do, an excuse to leave which he finds that he needs, ridiculous as it may seem.

He still feels like he’s expecting something to show up.

He sits back down in the armchair, considering moving to the couch out of spite, but he can’t as long as that bed is there with the memory of his grandmother attached to it. He reaches beside him for the closest thing he has to read. His fingers come in contact with the cover of a leather bound book and he stops, slowly pulling his hand away from the copy of _Mansfield Park_ he had been reading out loud to his grandmother.

He gives up, closing his eyes and trying to picture the events of the day to come, making them familiar so that he doesn’t find himself thrown for a loop and breaking down at some point when it isn’t convenient. Somewhere between his fifth rendition of walking from his rental car to the funeral home, he falls back to sleep, his dreams picking up swiftly where they left off.

The tugging returns, lighter and less urgent this time. Sebastian flexes his fingers, barely aware that he’s moving his hand, but it’s on the forefront of his mind now, keeping him locked into a place between awake and asleep.

_“Honey? Have you seen my tie? I can’t seem to find it anywhere.”_

_“You would think you don’t want to marry me, what with the way pieces of your tux keep disappearing.”_

_“I don’t think it’s because I don’t want to marry you,” Sebastian says, wrapping his arms around a trim waist and holding on tight, “I think it’s just that I don’t want to get out of bed if I have you naked in it.”_

More laughter, right by his ear, and the tugging grows harder, but Sebastian only laughs back, shifting lower in his seat. He feels a kiss on his cheek, soft lips brushing against his skin, a warm caress of breath causing goose bumps to bloom. He raises his hand to cover the spot, hoping to hold onto the sensation for as long as possible.

_“Oh, God, Sebastian! Yes…right…right there! Don’t stop! Please, don’t stop!”_

_“I won’t gorgeous…mmm…I won’t,” Sebastian grunts. “Don’t worry.”_

_“I…ergh…I don’t know how much longer I’m going to…”_

_“That’s alright, babe. I’m right there with you.”_

_“Oh, Sebastian…” a delicious moan echoes in the air around him, “I love you so much.”_

_Sweat rolls down Sebastian’s skin. He pants into the darkness, reaching out a hand for the beautiful man meeting his hips with every thrust._

_“I…I love you, too,” Sebastian sighs as his body finally gives in and he cums inside the gorgeous man he pledged his life to hours before._

Sebastian feels the tugging more frantically now, as if one more pull will tear his finger from his hand, but he doesn’t want to wake from what he rationally knows has to be a dream.

_The body bowed before him, covered in a dewy sheen of sweat, chest heaving as he tries to catch his breath, is so familiar. Sebastian knows this man. Sebastian wants this man._

_Sebastian needs this man._

_“Look at me,” Sebastian whispers. He hears is own voice in his ears and he knows he’s speaking out loud. Is there a chance this isn’t a dream? It all feels so real._

_The man sighs, finally calm enough to put together a coherent sentence._

_“But…but I look like a mess.”_

_Sebastian rolls his eyes._

_“You’re gorgeous,” he says, “no matter what you think. And the way you look after you’ve been fucked hard is probably my favorite look on you.”_

_The man giggles, high pitched like the tinkling of a bell._

_“Could you be anymore crass?”_

_“I’m sure I could,” Sebastian says with a smirk. “I was thinking of reciting an entire ode to how delicious your ass looks covered in my cum.”_

_“Oh dear Lord,” the man chuckles._

_“Just…just look at me,” Sebastian says softly. “Please.”_

_The man’s head drops, shaking slightly._

_“Okay, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”_

_“I’ve been warned,” Sebastian says, waiting, holding his breath and waiting._

It’s almost surreal how this man begins to move, his whole spine rippling as he turns slowly, as if Sebastian’s watching a film on half speed.

The film suddenly starts to stutter, coming to a screeching halt, replaced by the persistent thwap-thwap-thwap-thwap of the film strip coming off the reel.

Or something more persistent. Something louder.

Someone knocking on his door.

Sebastian raises a hand to his face, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his hand, carding through his hair with his fingers. A single strand of hair catches and pulls.

“Ouch.” Sebastian twitches, pulling his hand down in front of his eyes expecting to see the hair twined around his finger.

He doesn’t expect to see a bright red string tied in a double-knot to his ring finger.

“What the fuck!?“

***

“Thanks for lending me a suit,” Kurt says, twirling his empty coffee cup in his hands, “and for letting me come with you. But, why were there only three of us there?”

Sebastian stops in the middle of raising his cup to his lips, biting back the sour taste rising in the back of his throat.

“Because we were the only ones who deserved to be there.”

Kurt nods, not quite understanding, but agreeing nonetheless. The service was lovely, intimate, held in a smaller room of the funeral home decorated entirely in white calla lilies and purple lilacs. A few obligatory prayers were recited, but otherwise not much was said. Sebastian spent almost an hour standing by his grandmother’s casket, whispering in her ear and gently touching her folded hands. Before they left Sebastian placed a kiss into her hair and even though he tried to discreetly wipe it away, Kurt saw a single tear run down his cheek. Afterward Sebastian bid a fond farewell to the only other person there, an older woman he introduced simply as Antoinette, and without a verbal invitation he took Kurt out for a cup of coffee.

Kurt knows that Sebastian is in a considerable amount of pain. He can see it written on every inch of the man’s face, and in the way his sparkling green eyes become distant every so often without warning, then snap back when he realizes a pause in the conversation has gone on too long. Sebastian must have his reasons for not telling anyone else about the service. Hopefully someday he’ll explain them to Kurt.

Sebastian takes a gulp of his nearly cold coffee, fiddling absentmindedly with the red string tied to his finger. Sebastian twists it every so often and starts to notice that when he moves the string on his finger, Kurt reaches for the string on his own finger, as if the two really are connected. Or maybe Sebastian had a long, exhausting night and he is seeing what he wants to see.

“So, now what?” Kurt asks, staring at the red string. “Will you be going back to France now that your grandmother is gone?”

“That was my original plan,” Sebastian admits, sitting back in his seat and watching Kurt’s eyes narrow, “but…”

“But, what?”

“Well, I don’t _have_ to be anywhere really,” Sebastian says. “And like you, I had kind of an…interesting night.”

Kurt smiles, biting his lower lip in a way that makes Sebastian long to kiss him. He knows what Kurt would taste like, too; mocha and peppermint. It’s a combination he knows he’ll dream about for weeks.

Kurt shakes his head and laughs.

“Okay,” Kurt says, a little apprehensive, a little giddy, “well, I never really liked you, but I trust your grandmother. Maybe…maybe we should give this a chance.”

Sebastian feels his body go numb at those words; they come back to him like a sledgehammer to the back of the head, and suddenly he remembers all his dreams – every last one.

He smirks, feeling more like himself suddenly than he has in months. He reaches across the table and takes Kurt’s hand, feeling a strange twinge of electricity when the string on his hand brushes the string on Kurt’s finger. Kurt’s eyes flick up to meet Sebastian’s, his cheeks coloring slightly.

“I was kind of hoping you’d say that.”

 

 


	148. Daddies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by the prompt 'daddies'. Sebastian wakes up alone, knowing that Kurt is sleeping in someone else's bed...their foster son Thomas. Thomas has terrible nightmares about losing his mom, and Kurt and Sebastian talk about how best to make it better. Fluff, family, future fic.

At some point between dreaming about his mother’s rice pudding and dressing in a red Spandex super hero costume, Sebastian felt the soft press of lips against his. Regretfully, however, the lure of sleep won out over the promise of his husband’s tempting lips, and Sebastian drifted back into a world of crime fighting and custard-based desserts.

Sebastian turned onto his stomach and reach out an arm for Kurt, searching out his warmth and his incredibly soft skin even while his head still swam with the sweet delirium of sleep. Sebastian’s hand padded at the mattress, coming in contact with cold, wrinkled sheets at every pass. Sebastian sighed. He peeled one heavy eyelid opened and took a peek.

Gone. Kurt’s side of the bed was vacant. The sheets were cold. Sebastian frowned. He knew exactly where his husband had gone.

Kurt had crawled off to climb into bed with a sassier, much younger brunette.

Sebastian threw off his comforter with a resentful grunt, shivering as all the delicious heat escaped like a flash into the chill evening air. He grabbed blindly for his sweatshirt, tossing it on over his tank top t-shirt, trying to wake up even as his body gravitated instinctually back towards the bed.

“Kurt…” he groaned, his voice low and groggy. He stumbled into the hall, stubbing his toe on the door jamb along the way.

Sebastian felt his way down the hall, the journey to the small bedroom on the left not yet ingrained in his psyche so that he can make it unfailingly in the dark.

“Kurt…” he continued to groan, like some sleep deprived, one-track minded zombie.

“Shhh!” a high-pitched voice hissed from inside the otherwise quiet room.

“Did…did you just shush me?” Sebastian mumbled incredulously. Now more awake, he made his way quietly through the partially open door. He found Kurt where he always found him, cramped onto the far edge of the full-size bed, his entire body curled around a peacefully sleeping toddler. Sebastian could see a tuft of the boy’s brown hair, barely visible above the Skylanders comforter wrapped tightly around him.

Sebastian put a hand on Kurt’s shoulder, smirking down at the unlikely pair.

“I thought we agreed that climbing into bed with snuggles here every time he had a nightmare was a bad idea,” Sebastian chided around a yawn.

“I never said that,” Kurt muttered, refusing to look up into Sebastian’s mocking face.

“Uh, yes you did,” Sebastian said, moving to the unused side of the bed. “You said he needed to learn how to comfort himself. You showed me magazine articles, and quoted from books written by Star Trek characters…”

Kurt scoffed. He wrapped his arms protectively around the little boy.

Sebastian lied down carefully on the bed and stretched out, his feet hanging over the edge.

“Let me guess,” Sebastian sighed, “another dream about his mom?”

Kurt didn’t have to answer. They’d only had Thomas for about a month, and even though the little boy with the infectious laugh and the mischievous streak had opened up amazingly to Kurt and Sebastian, he dreamt every night about his mother.

The boy’s snarky attitude had appealed to Sebastian. Thomas reminded him of a miniature Kurt.

The way he had lost his mother had drawn Kurt to him. In the end, more than anything, that was why they had chosen him as their first foster child.

Though ‘foster’ was just a formality. Sebastian knew that once they got the okay, Thomas would be theirs.

“At least you could have let me get up with him this time.” Sebastian grabbed for the end of the comforter and pulled it over his body, the unused end barely fitting over him with nothing left to cover his back.

“You were deeply engrossed in another rice pudding dream,” Kurt whispered. “I know better than to interrupt one of those.”

“Mmm,” Sebastian moaned, smacking his lips. “Rice pudding.”

Sebastian lay still, trying hard to convince himself that he was comfortable enough to fall asleep, but after a few minutes with his ass hanging off the bed and his back exposed to the cold he realized he was in for a long night.

“Um…can’t we just take the little guy into our bed for the night, since we’re all together anyway?”

“No,” Kurt insisted, rolling his own stiff neck and shoulders. “Then he’ll just climb into bed with us whenever he has a nightmare, and that I _can’t_ allow.”

“We do need to get a lock for our door,” Sebastian said, trying to scoot closer to the cuddled pair. “What if he walks in on us…”

Sebastian stopped and chuckled.

“What?” Kurt asked, holding Thomas closer when he rolled over and buried his head beneath his pillow to block out their conversation.

“I just don’t make enough money to pay for that amount of therapy.”


	149. A Trip to the Doctor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is just a little bit of venting that requires a tiny bit of explanation. I have nothing against nurses. I love nurses. I think they’re invaluable. I also have nothing against receptionist. I was a receptionist for many, many years and I know first hand just how daunting that job is. But every once in a while you get one that just…ergh…and it’s usually at the pediatrician’s office. Now why do I add the thing about the nurses? Because a lot of people assume that the people who work the front desk at the dr. are nurses. This isn’t always true. It is at my children’s dr.’s office. This is my way of blowing off steam about something that happened last Sunday when we had an emergency with our baby. I’m just trying to make it funny… (P. S. What happened in the story didn’t happen to us…)
> 
> Phew…that said.
> 
> This is a second part to the one-shot I wrote a million years ago called ‘Daddies’. Kurt and Sebastian take Thomas to his pediatrician Wes (I made his last name Leung because I couldn’t find Wes’s last name), and Sebastian has it out with the receptionist.

“Hummel…Smythe…” Sebastian growled through a jaw clenched so tight he could barely breathe. “Thomas…Hummel…Smythe…”

“I know, sir,” the severe receptionist returned, completely unmoved by Sebastian’s mounting anger. “But your son is _still_ not on the list of appointments for today.”

“That’s probably because my husband just talked to Wes not five minutes ago,” Sebastian said, his fingers curling and uncurling in tight fists on the counter.

“Do you mean _Dr. Leung_?” the nurse returned condescendingly. Sebastian rolled his eyes.

“To you maybe. You didn’t sleep next to him for two years in high school.”

The nurse appeared slightly offended at that comment, which Sebastian chalked up as a win.

“Look,” the nurse said, handing Sebastian a clipboard, “you are more than welcome to fill out this admissions paperwork and wait with all of the other walk-ins. F.Y.I. it’s about a two hour wait.” Sebastian was sure he saw the evil woman grimace, but he knew that Kurt would withhold sex for at least a week if he dropped this woman like a hot potato here on the floor. Sebastian grabbed the clipboard with as much venom as he could put into picking something up, and reached for the sparkly little recycled soup can filled with flower pens, but when Nurse Ratched saw him reach for one, she grabbed it away. He looked at her with his jaw dropped.

“What the fuck?” he groaned.

“Those aren’t for the patients,” she said coolly, replacing it with a plain white mug filled with blue BIC ballpoint pens.

“But the other receptionist let us use the flower pens,” Sebastian groused loudly.

“Yes, well, the other receptionist isn’t here.”

“Yeah…and the other receptionist isn’t a bitch!” Sebastian spat out.

The woman stood up and slammed her hands on the desk.

“I will not be spoken to that way,” she said, jutting her chin and her tiny, upturned nose into the air.

“Yeah, well, you should have probably thought about that before you left your house and said ‘You know what? I think I’m going to be a bitch to some poor sick little kid’s parents today!’”

From the chorus of snickers that arose in the waiting room around him, Sebastian suspected he wasn’t the only one.

Kurt sighed, having snuck in with Thomas sometime after the pen argument and met Wes at the inside office door.

“Kurt,” Wes said, smiling warmly. “It’s so nice to see you. How is Thomas feeling?”

“His throat hurts,” Kurt said, keeping a hand around the shy little boy hiding behind his legs. “And I think he has an ear infection.”

“I see,” Wes said, looking at Thomas thoughtfully, then pulling a sudden, maniacal face that made the wary boy giggle. Wes shook his head at the ruckus coming from the front desk.

“Sebastian?” Wes called out over the bickering.

Sebastian stopped mid-insult and his head snapped in Wes’s direction. His red, twisted face relaxed into a smooth and charming grin.

“Wes, dude! Thank God you’re here.”

“Is everything alright?” Wes asked.

Before the nurse could put in her two-cents, Sebastian pointed at her accusingly.

“I don’t like her,” he said petulantly. “She’s being mean to me.”

Wes looked from Sebastian to the smug nurse rolling her eyes. Wes raised an eyebrow in her direction and the woman actually froze.

“Noted,” Wes said. Kurt had to bite his lip and turn his face away to muffle his laughter at the look of dread on the woman’s face. “Anything else?”

“Yes.” Sebastian stood to his full height, straightening his wrinkled shirt. “She won’t let me use the flower pens.”

Wes looked back at the now cowering woman, and made a subtle gesture with his head. She moved quickly but stiffly, returning the sparkly pen can back up to its place on the counter. Sebastian rubbed his hands together and plucked one of the pens, a purple gerbera, out of the can. He carried it with the clipboard and joined his family at the office door, throwing one last superior look over his shoulder as he went.

Wes simply shook his head as he led the way.

“Was that really necessary?” Kurt asked.

“Yes,” Sebastian said as he held the door open wide for his husband and son, “yes, it was.”


	150. The Lego Conundrum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone prompted me with ‘domestic Kurtbastian’ and this drabble immediately popped into my head. This is another in the group that includes ‘Daddies’ and ‘A Trip to the Doctor’.
> 
> Rated NC17 for language and mention of sex.

“This is your fault, you know,” Kurt gripes as he slowly makes his way across the living room carpet, plucking stray Legos from the pile and separating the blocks into different containers.

“For getting carpet instead of keeping the hardwood floors?” Sebastian smirks, watching his husband’s painfully sluggish progress, shaking his head every time Kurt hisses when he finds a particularly sharp block with the heel of his hand instead of his eyes.

“That,” Kurt agrees, “and for buying Thomas every single Lego known to man.”

“The boy needs to be able to build whatever he wants to build,” Sebastian argues.

Kurt kneels up straight and leans from side to side, pivoting at the waist to crack his tired back.

“Yeah, but he has enough Legos to build a full-scale model of Grand Central Station.”

“Well, no one says you have to separate them by size and color, Captain OCD,” Sebastian quips. “If you’d just grab them and toss them all together, you’d have been done an hour ago and we’d be fucking by now.”

Kurt blows out a breath in frustration, tossing his hands in the air.

“You could be down here helping, you know, instead of standing around making smart remarks.”

“I could,” Sebastian says, his smirk curling devilishly, “but the view of your ass is so much better from up here. Besides, I’ve got that old war injury.”

Kurt looks up at Sebastian with disgust.

“What war injury, you faker?” Kurt snaps.

“The one I got from fighting with you for all those years when you should have just given up like a good boy and agreed to be my boyfriend.”

Kurt crosses his arms.

“Well, I married you, you asshat, so it looks like you won and I lost. So get down here and help me.”

Sebastian tilts his head and sighs.

“You’re right,” he admits. “I should. But I think I’ll get a beer instead.”

Kurt scoffs as Sebastian winks at him and makes his way across the carpet towards the kitchen. Kurt shakes his head and bends low over the floor, gritting his teeth and getting back to the arduous job of hunting down Legos.

“God damned motherfucking shit!” Sebastian barks out suddenly. Kurt snaps his head up and sees his husband hopping around on one foot, the other foot raised and leaning against his knee. From his place on the floor Kurt can see two small red blocks lodged in the soft skin of Sebastian’s arch.

Kurt smiles.

Maybe there’s a God up there somewhere looking out for him after all.


	151. Thomas and the Bunny Pajamas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here's a Happy Easter one-shot featuring Kurt and Sebastian and their adopted son Thomas (featured in my stories 'Daddies', 'A Trip to the Doctor', and 'The Lego Conundrum'.

"Papadaddypapadaddypapadaddypapadaddypapadaddy…"

The chant continues, getting faster and louder the longer Kurt and Sebastian pretend to sleep, but faking out a four-year-old on a major candy related holiday championed by a fluffy animal mascot is nearly impossible, especially since children at that age can sense three things in adults: lies, fear, and consciousness, even in its tiniest measure.

Violent shaking by tiny but surprisingly strong hands accompanies the chanting, and Sebastian shakes his head.

"He's not leaving, is he?" Sebastian grumbles, wrapping his arms around Kurt and hugging him tighter, burying his head deeper into the crook of his husband's neck.

"I'm afraid not," Kurt mumbles back, pulling the comforter over their heads, just to have it yanked forcibly back down.

"Papa! Daddy!" a hyper voice whines. "He's been here! You have to get up!"

Kurt sighs.

"You know we're going to have to get out of bed," Kurt mutters, defeated by his own wisdom.

"But we just went to sleep ten minutes ago," Sebastian complains.

"I know, I know…" Kurt says, patting Sebastian's hand, trying to comfort the man currently burrowing into his back. Kurt peeks through a heavy eyelid at the enthusiastic little boy bouncing on their bed like it's a trampoline and snickers.

"Sebastian," Kurt laughs. "Sebastian, take a look at your son."

Sebastian groans even louder, prying a single eyelid open to catch sight of his son, hopped up on sugar and racing around their room. He focuses harder on the tiny blur as he drags around an oversized basket, shedding plastic grass all over the carpet.

"Thomas!" Sebastian says more sternly. "Did you break into the jellybeans?" Sebastian rubs his tired eyes with the heel of his hand to clear his vision. "We said no sugar till…"

After a few more blinks Sebastian can finally make out the sassy elfish child dancing in circles dressed in the most God-awful Pepto Bismol pink Easter Bunny pajamas Sebastian has ever seen.

"Holy shit!" Sebastian says, yawning and laughing at the exact same time. "He put them on! He actually put them on!"

Kurt elbows Sebastian hard in the ribs.

"Don't curse when he's around," Kurt scolds.

"I don't care," Sebastian says, pointing at the boy in the bunny suit sitting on the carpet in the corner of the room. "Look at him."

Kurt sits up to fully appreciate his adorable adopted son. Thomas's basket sits between his legs, gigantic bunny slippers on his feet, as he breaks into another small plastic egg full of jellybeans. One lop-sided ear droops into the boy's face, but he simply pushes it aside, intent on popping the colored candy into his mouth.

Kurt reaches over to the table beside their bed and grabs his iPhone.

"What are you doing, babe?" Sebastian asks. Kurt opens the camera app and aims at Thomas, snapping a few pictures.

"I'm letting Carole and dad see the terror they have wrought by sending us that outfit," Kurt explains, typing out a quick message to go along with the pictures and hitting send. Kurt sees Thomas reach for yet another plastic egg full of jellybeans and his eyes go wide, taking in the already empty eggs broken in half and littering the bottom of the basket.

"Okay, Thomas," Kurt relents, eager to get something else in his boy's stomach other than high fructose corn syrup and red dye #5. "Go into the living room. We'll have pancakes and eggs, and I'll get the map for the Easter egg hunt."

"Yay!" the boy cheers, grabbing up his basket and racing into the next room.

"A fucking map?" Sebastian moans in disbelief. "Are you kidding me?"

"How else do you expect us to find fifty hard-boiled eggs?" Kurt asks. "Trust me when I tell you that you don't want to miss one and find it in July."

Kurt throws off the comforter the rest of the way, shimmying out of the bed, but Sebastian pulls him back, laying him flat on the bed and crawling over him with a familiar telltale glint in his darkening green eyes.

"Oh, no," Kurt giggles, placing a hand flat on Sebastian's chest to push him away. "Not morning sex. Not today."

"It'll only take a minute," Sebastian promises. "And as usual, you don't have to do anything by lie back and let me do all the work."

Kurt slugs Sebastian in the shoulder with a grimace on his face that's fighting so hard to morph into a grin.

"Well, then later can I dress you up? I think you would make the hottest little bunny," Sebastian purrs into his husband's ear.

"Uh, I'm not sure I would actually fit into that costume," Kurt chuckles, turning his head and watching Thomas hop by the bedroom door, the ears on top of his head bobbing with each jump.

"I don't need you in the whole costume," Sebastian clarifies, nibbling on Kurt's earlobe. "Just the ears and the tail."


	152. Newest Member of the Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon prompted ‘Kurtbastian with a new puppy’; and Kurt, Sebastian, and their son Thomas immediately popped into mind. So here we go, and I hope you guys like it. Futurefic, AU.

“ _Ugh_ …Daddy?” Thomas grunts under the weight of an amazingly patient labradoodle puppy, slipping in the boy’s arms as he half-carries/half-drags the dog from the car to the house. “Isn’t papa… _uh-oh_ …going to be mad… _oops_ …when he finds out we went out and got a puppy… _mmfh_ …even after he said no?”

“He didn’t say no,” Sebastian reminds the boy, patting him reassuringly on the shoulder, staying close enough by his son to rescue the poor animal if needed. “He said he’d think about it.”

“Yeah, well… _oof_ …when papa says he’s going to think about something, that’s usually another way of saying no.”

Thomas sets the fluffy beige dog on the floor and plops down beside it.

“Don’t you worry about your papa, Tom-Tom,” Sebastian smirks, trying to keep the tone of his voice as G-rated as possible, “I’ll take care of him.”

Sebastian and Thomas hear the doorknob jiggle, and Sebastian leaps into action.

“Now, remember the plan, buddy?” Sebastian asks the concerned little boy who sits close and protective of his new best friend.

“Yup,” Thomas says with a nod, taking the black Wii remote that his father hands him.

“Good,” Sebastian says, dropping onto the floor beside the labradoodle and its anxious new owner. Sebastian turns on the flat screen and starts the game.

***

Kurt rummages through the mail, muttering to himself as he walks up the steps to the house.

“Bill, bill, junk…Ooo! Burberry catalogue…”

He reaches for the doorknob and gives it a turn, confused when he pushes on the door and it doesn’t open.

“Guys?” Kurt calls, knocking on the door. “Bas? Thomas?”

Kurt listens at the door as he calls out the names of his husband and son. He can hear the muted sounds of Mario Kart through the door but nothing else. He sighs, fishing in his pocket for his house keys.

“Guys,” Kurt calls in when he unlocks the door, “I told you I was just running to the post office. Why did you lock the door? Did you go out or something?”

“Yeah, babe,” Sebastian mumbles, completely involved in shooting a koopa shell at a passing Princess Daisy kart. “We ran out for minute. Sorry, I forgot to leave the door unlocked.”

Kurt stands and stares suspiciously at his distracted husband in silence. He eyes Sebastian and Thomas, both almost too focused on the game they’re playing. Sebastian’s eyes dart up to Kurt’s face quickly and he smirks, blowing him a kiss before returning to the game.

Kurt walks past, blocking the view of the t.v. for a moment. Father and son don’t yell at him as usual. Instead they crane their necks to peek around him. Something’s not quite right and Kurt knows it. He looks at them one last time and sighs, continuing on into the kitchen. Kurt shrugs. Maybe he’s mistaken, except…

Kurt walks back into the living room and takes another look at the pair playing Mario Kart with surgical concentration. His jaw drops and he puts his hands on his hips.

“Sebastian Smythe!” Kurt bellows. “Did you go out behind my back and get Thomas a dog after I said no?”

Thomas drops his remote and throws his arms around the quiet puppy’s neck, and Kurt feels his chest tighten.

“You never said no,” Sebastian points out, moving closer to his son and the puppy. “You said you’d think about it.”

“Bas!” Kurt groans. “We _did_ talk about it!”

Sebastian waits for a moment, and when no one speaks he nudges Thomas on the shoulder inconspicuously.

Thomas turns to stare at his father, bewildered, but then Sebastian raises his eyebrows and Thomas remembers ‘the plan’.

“Oh,” he says quietly. Kurt bites his lip to cage the chuckle bubbling up in his throat. “You and daddy talked about it,” Thomas recites stiffly, “but we didn’t discuss it as a fambly.”

“Family,” Sebastian corrects softly.

“Right,” Thomas says, “ _fam-i-ly_.”

Kurt gasps, trying to prepare a defense against an adorable five-year-old.

He pretty much accepts that he’s already lost.

“Tell him, Tom-Tom,” Sebastian encourages when he sees the clouded look in his husband’s eyes that signals his impending defeat.

“Papa,” Thomas starts, pulling himself straighter with his arms still looped around the puppy’s neck, “you said this house is a dem….demo…dem…”

“Democracy,” Sebastian whispers out of the corner of his mouth.

“Medocracy!” Thomas crows triumphantly.

“Close enough, kiddo,” Sebastian whispers again.

“And that means we all vote for the things we want and the most of us wins.”

Kurt sighs again, putting a hand to his forehead, head pounding with the strain of trying so hard not to laugh.

Thomas watches Kurt squeeze his eyes shut and shake his head. He turns his tiny head to stare at Sebastian, eyes wide with despair, pleading for help.

Sebastian ruffles the boy’s hair and gives him a reassuring wink as he stands and heads for his husband.

“Kurt,” Sebastian says, grabbing hold of his upper arms and pulling him out of earshot.

“Bas, we talked about this,” Kurt says, “about the shedding…”

“But it’s a labradoodle,” Sebastian intervenes. “They don’t shed. They’re hypoallergenic. Remember what Wes said about maybe getting Thomas a comfort animal? To help with his anxiety?”

“Bas…” Kurt looks up into Sebastian’s green eyes and groans, “there’s no such thing as a hypoallergenic dog. And besides, there’s the walking and the chewing and the messes.”

“Kurt…” Sebastian puts a hand to Kurt’s cheek, and despite his irritation at his husband’s actions he leans into the touch, “I’m not a complete idiot, you know. Wes put me in touch with an occupational therapist who specializes in animal therapy and gave me the number of a place that trains animals for boys like Thomas.”

Kurt looks at Sebastian with surprise; seeing the snarky, over-confident, devil-may-care man he fell in love with through new eyes.

“You really did all of that?” Kurt asks.

Sebastian smiles, leaning in close and pressing his lips gently to Kurt’s, kissing him tenderly.

It may not be overwhelmingly hot or all too passionate, but it’s enough to take Kurt’s breath away.

“When he needs to go out in the middle of the night, you’re taking him,” Kurt says against his husband’s tempting lips.”

“He’s crate trained,” Sebastian counters, “so already handled.”

“And if he chews on anything of mine, you’re replacing it…with interest.”

“Agreed, but I’m sure that will never happen,” Sebastian grins. “Anything else?”

Kurt’s exasperated look transforms into a wicked grin. He leans in to Sebastian’s ear.

“And you’re going to blow me,” Kurt whispers, “every night, every morning, and any time in between that I ask you to.”

“And how is that different from any other day that ends in ‘y’ for the past how many years?” Sebastian drawls, nibbling Kurt’s ear and tugging slightly.

Kurt giggles and turns back to Thomas, but the sound drifts away when he sees the boy’s head buried in the puppy’s neck, his chest shaking with silent sobs.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Kurt coos, breaking away from his husband and kneeling down beside the little boy. Kurt puts an arm around his shoulder and nuzzles his nose into his son’s strawberry-scented hair. “Why don’t we take our newest family member down to PetCo and get him some toys? Maybe a collar?”

Thomas’s watery eyes rose slowly to look at Kurt.

“You mean,” Thomas says, his voice wobbly, “you mean Hepburn can stay?”

Kurt turns his head to look back at his husband, meeting the green eyes watching them with a smug smile on his handsome yet still meerkatish face.

“Hepburn?” Kurt says with a raised eyebrow. “You guys didn’t pull any punches, did you?”

Kurt stands, helping Thomas to his feet. He offers the boy his hand and leads him to the front door, followed close behind by the obedient puppy.

“What can I say?” Sebastian asks, pinching Kurt’s ass as he passes in front of him. “I know all of your weak spots.”

 

 

 


	153. An Itchy Situation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by a FF reviewer's request for Kurt taking care of Seb while he's sick, something other than a headache or a cold. I had a lot of ideas, but this is the first one I got the chance to write. From the 'Daddies' verse which includes Kurt and Seb's adopted son Thomas and his labradoodle Hepburn. Warning for mentions of bondage, oral sex, and a little frustration. :)

Kurt stands at the end of the California king-sized bed, hands resting on his hips as he eyes his sexy husband, raking down his body with smiling blue eyes, licking dry lips as they fall past his bare chest and linger on the white cotton sheet that covers his hips down to his legs, knowing without seeing that all he’s wearing underneath is a pair of deep purple briefs. Kurt’s gaze returns to Sebastian’s face, biting his lower lip to stifle a giggle at the bright pink paste caked all over his tan skin.

“Tell me again,” Kurt whimpers when the urge to laugh becomes too irresistible, “how you are covered in head to toe poison ivy?”

Sebastian sighs, wiggling his nose when it itches to keep from scratching, staring forlornly at the paisley print oven mitts on his hands, duct taped around the wrists to keep him from ripping them off and scratching himself within an inch of his life.

“Kurt,” Sebastian groans, rolling his dry, irritated eyes to the ceiling, “I’ve told you this story three times already.”

“I know,” Kurt says, “but the part I can’t seem to wrap my mind around is how a grown man comes home covered in poison ivy when his five-year-old son and their puppy don’t seem to have a single rash.”

Kurt turns his head to look back at the little boy, whose arms are wrapped around his beige dog’s neck, staring up at his fathers anxiously. Kurt examines them both with shrewd eyes to make sure that his original assessment was correct.

“Nope,” Kurt says, turning back to his husband with a wicked grin. “Not a rash to be seen on those two.”

“Well,” Sebastian starts, eying his amused husband with agitation, “I…”

“Thomas,” Kurt interrupts, calling over his shoulder, “would you like to tell your daddy why it is that you’re not covered in head to toe poison ivy like he is?”

“B-because,” Thomas stutters, not sure if he should be answering and getting his daddy into trouble, “Hepburn sensed the danger and kept me away?”

“That’s right,” Kurt coos, his voice thick with condescension, “that means that you, Sebastian Smythe, have less common sense than a dog.”

“To be fair, labradoodles are very intelligent,” Sebastian retorts with a smirk.

“Okay, well,” Kurt claps his hands together and smiles, “there’s nothing much more I can do for you, babe. You have your calamine lotion opened and ready to be applied, you have a Big Gulp of Coca-Cola, and…” Kurt grabs the remote for the t.v. off the bedside table and puts it on the sheet beside Sebastian’s left oven mitt, “…now you can watch your programs.”

Kurt winks at him, smiling sunnily, and Sebastian mocks him, grimacing when the calamine lotion cracks again right below his eyes. He purses his lips and blows a stream of air up to try and dislodge a flake from his eyelid. He finally gives in and brushes it away with the rounded dome of the ridiculously oversized oven mitt.

“I’m taking Thomas out for some ice-cream, as a reward for not rolling down a hill into a patch of poison ivy just to retrieve a tennis ball.”

“Yeah!” Thomas crows. All semblance of anxiety bleeding away with the promise of a fudge-dipped soft serve cone, the boy runs off with Hepburn on his heels to put on his sneakers. Kurt’s eyes follow him out the door; then his gaze turns back to Sebastian, lying helpless on the bed, glaring up at Kurt with burning, vengeful eyes.

“Do you know what this reminds me of?” Kurt purrs, approaching the bed, sliding up slowly, trailing light fingers over the sheet, fingertips barely brushing Sebastian’s skin.

“What?” Sebastian snaps, but not as sharply as he intends, his eyes focused on where Kurt’s fingers linger above the sheet, dancing in little circles to and fro without touching his body.

“Do you remember in that blessed time before we had a little boy and a dog, when we could fuck in the living room in the middle of the day…” Kurt leans over, letting his lips travel an inch above Sebastian’s chest, his breath tickling his skin, making the hairs on his arms stand on end (or try to since they are pretty effectively plastered down with calamine lotion). “I used to tie you to the bed…” Kurt whispers in a husky, hungry voice, watching the bulge beneath the white sheet grow as he speaks in soft tones against Sebastian’s cheek. “I sucked you off till you couldn’t see straight…” He lets a single finger tease the head of Sebastian’s interested cock through the sheet. “I licked you and teased you, kept you on the edge of cumming all night long…and you used to call me…master?”

Sebastian moans into Kurt’s mouth where it hovers, lips parted, within a breath of his own.

“Yes…” Sebastian sighs, waiting for Kurt to kiss him, to touch him, to put him out of his misery. It would only take a minute. Thomas can definitely wait.

“Good to know,” Kurt says, grinning wide, pulling away slowly, feeling Sebastian’s hard cock throb once beneath his fingers as he steps back to view his handiwork - his cocky husband, hard and panting, completely helpless to do anything to relieve the pressure.

“I’ll just let you think about that while we’re out.” Kurt takes a step backward toward the door.

Sebastian suddenly realizes that Kurt is leaving, and his lust-blown eyes widen with panic.

“Wait…wait, Kurt…” Sebastian looks down his body at his now rock-hard cock straining against his briefs. He pulls off the sheet and fumbles with the elastic waistband of his underwear, trying to sneak a large, quilt-covered hand underneath. Kurt chuckles as he disappears out the door. “Kurt?” Sebastian calls out. “Kurt?...Kurt!”

“Don’t worry,” Kurt yells from the front door. “I’ll bring you home something to cool you off.”

 


	154. Swear Jar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here is another chapter in my ‘Daddies’ series. Because of Sebastian’s swearing and its effect on their adopted son, Thomas, Kurt is forced to take drastic measures. Warnings for swearing, symptoms of anxiety in a child, and insinuations of sex.

“Stupid, Goddamned, son-of-a…” Sebastian grumbles, tapping his forehead with his fingers, not even trying to calm down.

_Plink, plink, plink._

“Sebastian…” Kurt warns, taking over as the voice of calm.

“Why do I even try?” Sebastian mutters on, ignoring Kurt, pacing back and forth on the kitchen linoleum in a tight circle. “No matter what I say, he still makes stupid fucking decisions…”

“Sebastian!”

“I’m sorry, Kurt!” Sebastian apologizes, not stopping his stride, with Thomas hot on his heels. He hoists a Mason jar in the air, preparing for his father’s next curse word. “But this is the last and final fuc—frickin’ straw!”

Sebastian thought he had caught himself in time, but a tiny shake of the head from Kurt proves him wrong. Sebastian digs into his pocket, pulls out a shiny coin, and drops it into the Mason jar, transforming a new string of curses into something a little more creative so as not to go completely broke.

Cursing had never been a problem in the Hummel-Smythe household until recently, when Sebastian teamed up with some of his old Dalton buddies to start flipping investment properties. It was a hobby for fun and profit…that was the pitch Sebastian had used to get Kurt to agree. Everybody in the group brought something to the table – Wes has a particular expertise in finding just the right properties (an interesting skill for a pediatrician, but nevertheless…), David is a contractor with his own company, Thad’s brother is a painter with an amazing eye for custom colors (and with two new mouths to feed, always grateful for the work), and Trent is a crack real estate agent. Using Kurt’s exquisite designer’s eye, they have managed to make quite a bit of money already.

The only revolving door in their ‘flip crew’ is their electrician. Every one David hires ends up abandoning the project halfway through. It’s the bizarre Bermuda Triangle in their venture, and the source of Sebastian’s more colorful vocabulary as of late. Of course, Sebastian’s normal vernacular was never exactly G-rated. Kurt is lucky if he can keep Sebastian anywhere below NC-17, but usually Sebastian is pretty good about not dropping the F-bomb in front of Thomas.

They were in the middle of completing their fifteenth house, and another electrician had gone AWOL when it seemed like suddenly all the rules were washed right down the drain. It didn’t bother Kurt too much; he would simply usher Thomas out of the room until Sebastian’s fit was finished.

Then Kurt got a call from Thomas’s school. Thomas had messed up an art project – a macaroni portrait of Abraham Lincoln – and he had a mini F-bomb of his own. From that afternoon on, Kurt decided drastic measures had to be taken.

Hence, the swear jar. For every swear word that slipped, the guilty family member had to pony up a coin. Thomas’s fine was a nickel from his own allowance. Kurt’s was a dime. Since Sebastian seemed to be the worst offender, his fine was a quarter.

Of course, contentions had been made for specific circumstances, because there were times when cursing just couldn’t be avoided. It had been agreed that if a metal safe dropped on someone’s foot that they would be allowed to curse while they dealt with the pain. Sebastian mentioned to Kurt , in private, that Kurt tends to have quite a foul mouth on him during sex, but Kurt said that fell under the umbrella of contentions as unavoidable, and since it doesn’t happen in front of Thomas, it doesn’t count toward the total.

At the end of each week, the money in the jar is sorted and counted. If Thomas has contributed the most coins, he has to do extra chores or has a privilege taken away. If it’s Kurt, he has to make Thomas’s favorite peanut butter cup cheesecake. If Sebastian curses the most, he has to take the family out for pizza and ice-cream.

By the weight of Thomas’s little jar, evident by the strain in his shaking arms as he hefts the jar up onto his chest, Sebastian is going to be taking the lot of them out for pizza and ice-cream for sure.

“Sebastian,” Kurt says, trying to sound reasonable, “try and calm down, and we can discuss this.”

“I’m fucking through discussing this, Kurt!” Sebastian growls.

 _Plink_.

“Sebastian…” Kurt goes for stern this time, “I don’t like you using that language in front of Thomas. We talked about this.”

“What?” Sebastian looks at Kurt, thoroughly confused. “I’m following the rules. I’m paying the fucking jar, aren’t I, Tom-Tom?”

 _Plink_.

“Yes,” Thomas says with a grin, repositioning the jar so it doesn’t fall, skittering behind his father to keep up.

“No,” Kurt argues, “you’re abusing the jar. The jar is supposed to teach Thomas not to curse, not to introduce him to the concept of loopholes.”

“What loophole?” Sebastian grimaces at Kurt, making air-quotes with his fingers to emphasize his point.

“The loophole that you can say whatever the hell you want as long as you pay the jar!”

Thomas turns to Kurt and frowns.

Kurt rolls his eyes and digs a dime out of his pocket.

 _Plink_.

“Well, I need to vent, so this is me VENTING!” Sebastian says through gritted teeth, so close to exploding that Kurt can feel the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Even Thomas’s smile slips, and Hepburn, his labradoodle puppy, winds between the little boy’s legs to keep him from getting too upset. “And when I VENT, I SWEAR!”

Kurt stands from his stool and approaches his husband, pushing Thomas behind his body gently with a hand to the boy’s shoulder.

“Sebastian…” Kurt’s voice is soft, lulling, “I don’t think you understand…”

“You don’t understand, Kurt!” Sebastian roars. “This is serious!”

Sebastian looks from Kurt’s face, to Thomas’s face, the boy huddling behind his father’s legs, hugging the swear jar to his chest, while his loyal labradoodle puppy stands guard at his feet.

“Jes—“ Sebastian cuts himself short, patting down his pockets, sullen and annoyed. He turns away from his husband and son without a word and heads for the door.

“Sebastian? Honey?”

Kurt doesn’t move with Thomas attached tightly to his legs, but from where they stand in the kitchen, stunned, they can hear Sebastian climb into his Mustang and slam the car door.

Father and son are silent in the wake of an absent Sebastian.

“Papa?” Thomas’s meek voice squeaks from his hiding place. “Papa? Where is daddy going?”

“I…I don’t know, Thomas,” Kurt says, looking down at the little boy. Wide, watery eyes stare back up at him.

“Is he…is he going to come back?” the boy asks, his voice wavering slightly.

“Oh, Thomas,” Kurt coos, mussing the boy’s hair, “of course he will…”

 _Eventually_ , Kurt thinks with dismay, but of this he can be completely certain.

Sebastian would never leave them.

That doesn’t mean he might not do something completely stupid and reckless in the meantime.

The sound of the car door slamming and the house door opening again startles the pair, who stare back at each other for the briefest second before Sebastian storms in again, his left hand tucked slightly behind his back. He looks at Kurt, then at Thomas, and sighs. He kneels down, coming eye to eye with the boy. Sebastian pets Hepburn first, letting the dog know that everything is okay. Sebastian grabs the full Mason jar around the middle, pulls it carefully out of Thomas’s hands, and sets it down on the kitchen table. From behind his back, he produces an empty Mason jar and puts it in Thomas’s hands. Then he reaches his hand into his pocket and pulls out a roll of quarters – a survivor of the prior week’s midnight arcade-a-palooza adventure that Kurt wasn’t all too thrilled about until he beat Sebastian at air hockey three times in a row. He shows the roll to Thomas, whose eyes go wide, envisioning the tirade his father is preparing if he plans to use up all those quarters. Instead, Sebastian opens the end of the paper cylinder and dumps the whole roll into the jar with a loud crash of metal against glass.

“Why don’t we just assume that everything I was going to say for the next ten minutes was full of cursing, and skip to the end.”

“What happens at the end?” Thomas asks, a small smile twitching at the corner of his lips, his body relaxing into the crook of Kurt’s knee.

“Well, I apologize for abusing the power of the swear jar,” Sebastian says, leaning in close and touching noses with his son, a slow smile burning on the boy’s face, while Kurt gazes down at the two and shakes his head. “And then…PIZZA AND ICE-CREAM!”

Sebastian grabs Thomas out from behind his husband’s legs and tickles him until the previously anxious boy dissolves into a pile of snorts and giggles.

“Stop!” he chokes out between laughs, “I can’t…breathe…”

“If you can talk, you can breathe,” Sebastian says, tickling the boy mercilessly for a moment longer. He picks him up and sets him on his feet. “Now, why don’t you go get Hepburn’s vest and we’ll head out?”

Thomas’s eyes light up at the mention of Hepburn’s vest, pleased and proud that the labradoodle had finally finished training and earned full service dog status in the form of a bright red vest.

Sebastian stands and Kurt loops his arms around his husband’s neck.

“Did I do good?” Sebastian asks, kissing Kurt slowly around his mouth, down his chin, along his jaw, up to his ear.

“Well, you haven’t exactly apologized to _me_ yet,” Kurt says.

“I thought maybe I could apologize to you later…” Sebastian sucks Kurt’s earlobe into his mouth and nibbles gentle.

“Mmm,”Kurt hums, “and how do you intend on doing that?”

“I thought maybe, after the munchkin’s asleep, I could try to get _you_ to fill up the swear jar.” Sebastian tilts his head, his lips curling into that cocky grin that Kurt finds way too enticing.

“But we agreed that anything that happens in the bedroom doesn’t count,” Kurt reminds him, “especially if Thomas doesn’t hear.”

“What if we manage to wake him up?” Sebastian smirks, licking the shell of Kurt’s ear.

“Then we’d better stop spending the swear jar money on pizza and ice-cream and start saving it.”

Sebastian pulls away from Kurt and looks into his amused blue eyes.

“For what?” Sebastian asks, intrigued.

“For therapy,” Kurt laughs, “because if he walks in on us doing the things that make me swear, then he’s going to need it.”

 


	155. The Cupcake Calamity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is another one-shot from my ‘Daddies’ series, featuring Kurt and Sebastian (well, mostly Kurt) making cupcakes last minute for a bake sale at their son’s school. This one is inspired by personal events, and mentions one of my fave San Diego bakeries. Warning for mention of sex and foul language, and the mention of anxiety issues in a child. Originally, Thomas was going to make an appearance, but it’s past his bed time ;) AU, FutureFic, humor

“Are you sure there wasn’t _any other time_ in the last two weeks that you could have told me Thomas would need 120 cupcakes by tomorrow morning?” Kurt asks in a mock cheerful voice while angrily whisking away at his signature cherry red velvet cupcake batter and glaring murderously at his husband.

“Probably,” Sebastian answers with a shrug and an infuriating sense of calm. He meets Kurt’s glare and has the balls to look unrepentant. “Sorry, babe. I just forgot.”

It was on one of the mornings when Sebastian takes Thomas to school that Thomas’s teacher, Mrs. Henderson, had told Sebastian about the school’s annual Penny Bake Sale. She had even given him a bright orange flyer. He only half-listened at the time when she explained about Kaplan School’s ingenious plan to nail parent’s twice for donations during the course of one fundraiser. Parents pay the school money which is put into their student’s “accounts” so that they can buy treats at the bake sale. On the day of, the kids come to school with a pocketful of pennies and use those to make their purchases. Kids are allowed to buy until their account runs dry. Along with being a fundraiser, it’s also supposed to be a lesson in math and budgeting for the kids. Sebastian smirked while he listened. This school seemed to have a way to suck the fun out of everything. That’s probably why Kurt loves it so frickin’ much.

Once he heard the words ‘bake sale’, Sebastian pledged 120 cupcakes, which thrilled Mrs. Henderson to no end because Kurt’s cupcakes are legendary. But Sebastian was worried about Thomas in all of this. His son isn’t all that good at math and the concept of budgeting is foreign to him, no matter how hard Kurt tries to help the boy manage his allowance. When Thomas doesn’t have a firm grasp of a concept, he stresses out really easily and that usually results in a level 18 meltdown. Sebastian doesn’t want to be a helicopter parent. He doesn’t want to have to attend the bake sale and hover over him, telling him what he can buy and what he can’t, so to circumvent the problem Sebastian wrote a check for $30 to put into Thomas’s account.

If Thomas spends $30 on treats that cost a penny, someone had fucking better find a way to stop him, tantrum or no.

Sebastian had left the school, prepared to call Kurt and let him know about the cupcakes he would have to bake, but as luck would have it, Kurt sent him a particularly filthy text along with an explicit picture, and all thoughts of bake sales and cupcakes flew straight out of his head.

Later on that same day, Sebastian used the bright orange bake sale flyer in a pinch to clean up after Hepburn, Thomas’s pet labradoodle and service animal, during one of their impromptu after school trips to the park. Sebastian wasn’t worried. He was sure he would remember the information and relay it to his husband.

Apparently, he was mistaken.

Which is why Kurt has been in the kitchen for the past two hours at nearly eleven o’clock at night, whisking away, with a small army of cupcakes already baked and sitting in tiny, multi-colored foil cups on the kitchen island.

“You know, considering the fact that Thomas’s class is filled with kids who are all on special diets and have bizarre food allergies, it seems that we should be exempt from this insanity,” Sebastian comments, doing his best to show solidarity for his poor, overworked husband while all the while eying the cupcakes in front of him, making moves to confiscate one of the cupcakes in the red foil cups closest to him.

“First of all, this is a _fundraiser_ for the _school_ ,” Kurt explains with a thick helping of condescension, “and as Thomas attends Kaplan School, that means _we_ participate, and second of all, that is why Mrs. Henderson took the liberty of giving me a thorough and organized list of everyone’s various food needs.”

Sebastian looks over the tops of the cupcakes to a color-coded list stuck in the pages of Kurt’s recipe book on the counter. Sebastian’s eyes went wide.

“Which means what?” he asks.

Kurt huffs, blowing out a breath through his lips that lifts his bangs off his forehead. He stops whisking.

“That means that this batch of 60 cupcakes are regular red velvet cupcakes for the _normal_ kids...” He says the word _normal_ with a ridiculous amount of emphasis, and somehow manages to do the equivalent of air quotes with his expressive eyebrows. “The ones in the blue foil cups are gluten-free. The ones in the red foil cups are sugar-free…”

“Ewww…” Sebastian comments, looking back with disgust at the red foil cupcake he was preparing to snag moments before.

“The ones in the green foil cups are peanut-oil free, and the ones in the gold foil cups have no potassium.”

Sebastian sits back and furrows his brow.

“Why the fuck…”

“I don’t know!” Kurt laments in frustration, going back to his whisking. “Steven’s mother says he can’t eat potassium. I don’t particularly care why, but there has to be at least ten cupcakes for each frickin’ kid ergo a batch of super-dense potassium-free cupcakes! God save the Queen!”

Sebastian wants to laugh. He wants to laugh at his adorably overwrought husband pouring out his tenth batch of cupcakes. He wants to laugh at the flour dusted over Kurt’s designer pajamas. He wants to laugh at the way Kurt mutters curses at Sebastian underneath his breath, and at the blissful domesticity of watching his husband in the kitchen.

But Sebastian spies a spattering of red velvet batter at the hollow of Kurt’s neck, and all of his attention focuses on that…and his need to lick it off.

Sebastian stands from his stool over by the fleet of cupcakes to sneak up on Kurt who is focused on his cupcake pan, but stops when he notices Kurt’s entire body go rigid. Sebastian figures it’s because Kurt senses Sebastian walking towards him, and he’s not in the mood to be touched, but he sees Kurt’s blue eyes stare down at the counter, or is it his hands, and then up at the cupcakes with panic on his face. He stands up straight, raising his hands and grabbing at his hair in clumps.

“OhmyGod!” Kurt exclaims. “OhmyGodOhmyGodOhmyGod!”

“Kurt?”

Sebastian immediately races over to his husband, overwhelmed with concern at the look on Kurt’s face, which has gone pale in less than a second.

“My ring…” Kurt mumbles, his eyes searching the tops of the cupcakes as if they might hold the answer.

“What?” Sebastian asks with confusion, following Kurt’s gaze to the cupcakes sitting quietly lined up in their neat, perfect rows.

“My ring!” Kurt repeats, pulling his left hand out of his hair and showing it to Sebastian. “My wedding ring! It’s gone! It must have slipped off while I was baking and now…”

He doesn’t finish his sentence. He can’t. It’s lodged in his throat at the thought of exactly where his ring has ended up…and what they would need to do to find it.

“Oh God,” Sebastian mutters, but even as Kurt trembles with frustration and anger beside him, he has to clamp his teeth over his tongue to keep from laughing.

This is definitely not the time.

“It’s okay,” Sebastian says, running his hands down Kurt’s arms, stealing a last, longing glance at that spot of batter on Kurt’s neck that is simply begging him to run his tongue over it. “We’ll cut the cupcakes open carefully, this way we can glue them back together…”

Kurt turns on Sebastian with an eyebrow raised and a grimace on his face.

“Glue?” Kurt asks.

“You know, with frosting or something…”

Sebastian thought it was a reasonable compromise, but his suggestion seems to frustrate Kurt more. Kurt sighs, the kind of full body sigh that deflates a defeated human body like a balloon. He turns his head to look at the oven clock and groans.

“It’s fucking midnight,” Kurt says. “I’m sixty cupcakes behind, and I can’t even see straight anymore. Everything just looks red.” He reaches out a hand and turns off the oven. “I’m going to bed.”

Kurt pulls away from Sebastian’s hands on his arms and heads for the door.

“But…but what about your ring…and the cupcakes?”

Kurt puts a hand to his head and squeezes his bleary eyes shut.

“You got us into this mess,” Kurt mumbles. “You can get us out.”

Sebastian looks down at the mass of cupcakes - one of which has essentially swallowed his husband’s ring - then over to the cookbook with the recipe for Kurt’s masterpiece cupcakes that only _he_ can seem to get perfect, and finally to that color-coded list.

“But…but…wait a minute,” Sebastian says, chasing after Kurt and blocking his way, “I really wanted to get with you tonight…” Sebastian is pleading, his voice low, his lips closing in on that prized spot of batter. “I’ve been thinking about you all day.”

“Well,” Kurt says, pulling back right before Sebastian’s lips can touch Kurt’s skin, leaving Sebastian to whimper in its wake, “if you can think of a way to find my ring and replace 120 cupcakes in the next 20 minutes, then I promise to ride you into the fucking mattress. But after I’ve taken a nice, hot shower, I intend to be in bed and asleep, so if you wake me up, I’m going to start removing body parts…” Kurt leans in to his husband’s ear, “and I promise they will be parts that you will miss.”

Kurt backs away, spinning on one heel and blowing out the door.

Sebastian swallows hard.

He turns back to the sea of cupcakes, all of them mocking him now.

He gets an idea. He picks up a fork and starts stabbing at some of the cupcakes, trying to see if the tines make contact with something hard and titanium, but after twenty cupcakes he finds nothing. To top it off, the once pert pastries start to sink in on themselves from all the holes, rendering them completely unusable. Kurt would never stoop to selling flat cupcakes, even to children.

Sebastian looks at the time on the clock and grumbles.

Five minutes wasted, and still no closer to a ring or cupcakes.

How the fuck did Kurt expect him to fix this?

It reminds him of the birthday party they went to for Wes’s daughter, Emily. She has some strange gluten/sugar issue, too, and they had to order her cake from some specialty bakery downtown. Wes showed up twenty minutes late, but he had forgotten to pick it up on the way to the venue like he promised.

Luckily, they delivered.

Sebastian jerks upright, struck by the bolt of an amazing idea. He yanks out his iPhone and pulled up a browser window.

“Please have a website, please have a website, please have a website…” he mutters, searching the Web for a listing for Gloria’s Bakery. “Bingo!”

And there it was. Salvation. Kurt said that Sebastian needed to find a way to replace 120 cupcakes. He never said Sebastian had to make them himself. He clicks on the hyperlink for _place an order._ He looks down the options for cupcakes and finds a section for special orders and express delivery.

_Cupcakes ordered before 3 a.m. can be ready for same day delivery during normal bakery hours with a surcharge of $35 per dozen._

$350 in delivery costs on a $147 order of cupcakes?

Sebastian pictures Kurt for a second, gloriously naked, his pale skin glowing and marked with red cupcake batter waiting for Sebastian to lick it off.

Sebastian chuckles.

“Totally worth it,” he says, selecting the cupcakes, entering his credit card number, and placing his order. “Okay,” he recounts out loud to himself, “sixty regular red velvet cupcakes, twenty gluten-free, ten peanut-oil free, twenty sugar-free, and ten potassium-free for freak show Steven - why, we don’t know.”

He looks at the cupcakes on the counter and smiles.

This next part is going to be fun, but first he has to set the mood.

He scrolls through the music selections on his phone and selects Mussorgsky’s _Night on Bald Mountain_.

Never let it be said that Sebastian Smythe ever did anything in halves.

With the orchestral score rising and falling behind him, he tears through the cupcakes with his hands, pulling them apart in search of his husband’s ring. The carnage of the cakes is brushed to the floor as cupcake after cupcake is decimated, and still no ring.

 _Wouldn’t it be hilariously ironic,_ Sebastian thinks, _if the ring didn’t fall into the cupcake batter at all? What if Kurt left it by the sink in the bathroom, or his bedside table…_

Sebastian smiles as he ruins the next cupcake in his hands. He knows Kurt didn’t take it off. Kurt always said that the only way someone would get that ring off his hand would be to cut off his finger.

It’s in the body of that last, traitorous, red foiled cupcake that Sebastian finds Kurt’s ring, winking up at him. Sebastian wipes the ring off as best he can with a dish towel and kisses it. Sebastian has never been much of a jewelry man, but this one ring means the world to him. Sebastian looks at the clock. Three minutes left. He’s cutting it down to the wire, but he’ll just make it.

Sebastian rounds the corner, slipping on the remnants of destroyed cupcake littered all over the linoleum floor. He takes a look down and catches a glimpse at his clothes, also covered in cake, and strips them off, tossing them aside and racing to his room in nothing but his deep red briefs with the ring clutched in his hands.

He doesn’t know what Kurt was complaining about. Bake sales are no big thing.


	156. Twist of Fate - Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the anon prompt - 'Kurt and Sebastian get mugged'. Warnings for foul language, homophobic language, insinuation of drug use, mentions of gun violence. (Rated M) Futurefic, AU, Alternate universe - soulmate.
> 
> For anyone who might not know, this was turned into a chapter fic that's completed (I believe it's five chapters total). If you look under my works for "Twist of Fate", you'll find it in its entirety <3

“So, it hasn’t happened to you yet?” Kurt asks, taking a sip from his non-fat mocha. He shivers when a nighttime breeze slips up his sleeve and manages to chill him despite the heat of the coffee warding off the cold.

“Fuck no, obviously,” Sebastian laughs, switching places with Kurt subconsciously to block his thin-skinned friend against the wind, “and thank God. I mean, first of all, I don’t _want_ a soulmate, I don’t _need_ a soulmate, I hope I fucking never _find_ my soulmate.”

Kurt flinches, unexpectedly wounded by Sebastian’s words.

“You don’t?” he says, hiding his hurt in another sip of his coffee.

“Nope,” Sebastian says with his trademark cynicism. “Why would I need a soulmate when I have you?” Sebastian winks and Kurt smiles into his cup. He wants to believe that’s true, but it’s inevitable. Eventually Kurt is going to stumble across his soulmate and Sebastian would find his. It would strike like lightning, from out of nowhere, and their friendship – this strange weed that took root and bloomed into a wild and fabulous flower – would be over. A soulmate overwhelms you, Kurt heard - your love for them all-encompassing. Kurt has a feeling that Sebastian will find his soulmate first, and after that, he won’t even remember Kurt exists.

Kurt swallows hard at the thought of Sebastian in the arms of some man – some other man who isn’t him.

“And besides,” Sebastian continues, filling the silence, “that whole bodyswapping thing is just fucking creepy.”

Kurt sputters, then laughs, and Sebastian reacts with a hearty laugh of his own. He’s heard Sebastian moan over and over about this one particular aspect of the soulmate finding process. No one really understands it, as is the way with all highly contested scientific truths. Not a single person chose their own soulmate. A combination of genetics, personality factors, brain chemistry, and plain blind luck did it for you. Your soulmate could be a stranger you meet at a coffee shop tomorrow or someone you’ve known your entire life. One day, for whatever reason, the two of you switch bodies and then you know that person is the one for you. In that time when you are not yourself, you imprint in their bodies, on their DNA, and the two of you become one.

He accepts it, but he has to agree. It’s creepy. But whether Sebastian likes it or not, it’s a fact of nature, and you can’t fight nature.

“The switch only lasts for about a week,” Kurt reassures him.

“Yeah, well, do you think I want to be out of my body for a week?” Sebastian asks with a groan. “I mean, I can see why some other poor sucker would want to be all up in this…” Sebastian gestures down the length of his body with a sweep of his hands, “but personally, I don’t want to be stuck up in someone else’s skin. I mean, I won’t even use another man’s shower. Why am I going to want to live in their body?”

“I don’t know,” Kurt laughs, shaking his head. He looks down at his feet, watching the toes of his shoes skim across the dirty concrete. “I guess the universe thought it was a romantic notion.”

“Yeah, well, I have it on pretty good authority that the universe doesn’t necessarily give a shit about us puny humans,” Sebastian retorts in a tight voice. Kurt’s head snaps up to meet Sebastian’s eyes, but he’s glowering straight ahead, his jaw locked. Sebastian had his own ideas about soulmates and everlasting love…and which one of them would find theirs first.

Already he can picture himself taking this walk for their nightly coffee alone.

“And whose authority is that?” Kurt asks.

Sebastian chews thoughtfully on the inside of his cheek while he considers how he’s going to answer Kurt’s question. He sees a subtle movement from the corner of his eye and tries to ignore it, but it’s like the erratic swooping of a fly in and out of his blind spot. He has to be rid of it.

He turns and catches Kurt’s eye as Kurt pulls his tongue back in his mouth, rushing to recompose the face he was making while Sebastian sulked. A smile spreads wide on Sebastian’s face as all the snarky comments and bitter remarks are sucked away.

“Me, okay?” Sebastian says, reaching out an arm to shove Kurt away, but sinking his fingers into the arm of Kurt’s coat instead and tugging him close. “I’m the authority.”

“Good to know,” Kurt says, tossing his empty coffee cup away in a wire trash can at the corner of the sidewalk they’re on.

“Why?” Sebastian presses the button for the light, but then crosses against it anyway.

“Because now I know to ignore all that bullshit you just said.”

Sebastian chuckles, absorbed in Kurt’s warmth, his smell, the way he fits so comfortably beneath his arm. He can’t imagine anything in the world that will be better than this. He steals a moment to pretend that Kurt _is_ his soulmate, that the two of them are meant to be together.

He lets his guard down.

The click of a slide brings him back.

“Give me your wallet,” a rough voice hisses from behind them. “Now!”

Kurt and Sebastian stop walking at the same time.

Sebastian turns slowly, pushing Kurt reflexively behind his body as he does. Sebastian sees the gun – not so much the man holding it.

“It’s alright,” Sebastian says, slowly reaching into his back pocket for his wallet. “I’ll give you my wallet. You don’t need to shoot anyone.”

Sebastian slips his hand into his pocket and finds nothing. He pats down the pockets of his jeans and freezes.

He didn’t bring his wallet.

It was Kurt’s turn to treat.

Kurt even made a big joke of making Sebastian leave his wallet at home. It was sitting on his kitchen table where he had dropped it hastily before they left Kurt’s apartment.

“Uh…Kurt,” Sebastian whispers, swallowing hard, “I don’t have my wallet.”

“Shit,” Kurt whimpers, frantically searching his own pockets for his wallet.

“Wait,” the man with the gun says, craning his neck to peer around Sebastian’s body at the sound of rustling, “what’s going on? What’s your girlfriend doing back there?”

Sebastian meets the man’s eyes for the first time – red veins spider webbing over the yellow-tinged whites surround thin brown irises and pupils blown abnormally wide, even for nighttime. His gun hand shakes, sometimes vibrating his whole arm, and he shifts feet – left to right – as if preparing to run any second. His shoulders twitch, and his free hand reaches up to scratch at his neck, at dirty skin already clawed raw.

Sebastian feels a sudden sense of urgency grip at him and squeeze hard.

This man is tripping hardcore.

Sebastian needs to get Kurt away from him…now.

“Uh, Kurt, honey,” Sebastian whispers again, trying to stay calm. “Could you hurry up, please?”

“I’m trying,” Kurt says through trembling lips, his palms sweating, trying to grab hold of the wallet trapped in the pocket of his skinny jeans with his fingertips.

“I said, what’s going on over there?” the man yells, eyes darting back and forth immediately down the dark sidewalk, looking for oncoming foot traffic.

“Nothing,” Sebastian says, an edge to his forced calm, “I don’t have my wallet.”

“I…I do,” Kurt stutters, reaching around Sebastian’s body and tossing his wallet to the man with the gun. It lands at the gunman’s feet, but he doesn’t look at it. His eyes go wide instead at the sight of Kurt standing beside but slightly behind Sebastian, gripping tight to Sebastian’s arm. The man’s chapped lips twist, exposing greying teeth and bleeding gums.

“Are you…are you guys homos?” he growls, his gun hand shaking more, or maybe he’s waving it, the barrel bouncing back and forth between them.

Kurt doesn’t know what to say. He has always believed in standing up to bullies, in not denying himself, so he’s more than mortified when his gut reaction is to blurt out _no!_ But obviously this situation is different. This man has a gun. He doesn’t seem completely stable, and he doesn’t look like he approves of Kurt and Sebastian.

Ironic that the drugged-out mugger is going to discriminate against them for their lifestyle choices.

Look at _his_ life right now.

But he has a gun, so at this moment, he makes the rules.

“You have his wallet,” Sebastian says slowly, trying to back Kurt away. A single movement of his foot brings the attention of the mugger’s gun back to Sebastian’s face and holds steady. Sebastian freezes. “Just pick it up and go.”

It sounds reasonable to Kurt. It’s an excellent, thought out plan. Kurt holds his breath and bites hard on his tongue, cowering beneath the cold gaze bearing down on him, and prays the mugger takes Sebastian’s advice – that he takes the wallet and runs.

If he doesn’t, he still has the upper hand.

A wallet, or two dead men and a wallet are the same thing, really.

Kurt tries not to look at the gun. Maybe if he doesn’t acknowledge its existence, the man will forget he has it.

But Kurt is terrified, and the way his body reacts isn’t entirely up to him. It’s hard for him to be held hostage by something that can end his life and not look at it. His eyes water with the effort of staying open, but then he blinks, and his eyes flick down to the gun pointed at them. When his eyes travel back up, the man has trained the barrel on him.

“So, you fuck him?” the man says, shifting feet again. “The two of you fuck each other?”

Sebastian sucks in a deep breath.

“Take the wallet…” he says again, hoping to derail the man’s train of thought.

“That’s sick,” the man spits. His shifting feet kick the wallet and Kurt’s heart slams to a stop.

He kicked the wallet.

He doesn’t care about the money anymore.

He’s got a gun.

“You sick fucks!” The man takes a step forward and Sebastian pushes Kurt back farther behind him. “What…what’s wrong with you, man?”

Kurt panics, sure that Sebastian is going to come out with some witty remark, something angry, something that will provoke the man, but not for a single moment does he consider running and leaving Sebastian alone.

“You’re right,” Sebastian agrees. “We’re sick. We’re sick, and we should go get help. So you just take that wallet and go, and we’ll go somewhere and get some help.”

Kurt is stunned by this side of Sebastian – calm under pressure and willing to do or say anything to save his life…but not just his life, _their_ lives.

Sebastian is trying to save Kurt’s life, possibly at the expense of his own - keeping Kurt behind his body, blocking him from the gun, knowing that at any moment the man can kill him.

At this point, he probably _will_ kill them.

The man is right on them, stopped a foot from them. Kurt can’t bring his eyes to leave his face – pockmarked and filthy, matted hair stuck to his cheeks and sparsely grown scruff around his chin. There’s an aura of desperation surrounding him and not a hint of humanity in his broken stare.

Then Sebastian says something that renders Kurt entirely useless.

“Look,” he says, not betraying a single thread of his calm, “if you have to shoot someone - fine. Shoot me. Let my friend go.”

The gunman’s face goes completely blank.

“Sebastian…” Kurt whispers, slipping a hand into his.

“Hey!”

The yell comes from a man who has turned onto their sidewalk and sees Kurt and Sebastian being held at gunpoint. The gunman flinches, his attention momentarily drawn away from his two victims. Sebastian sees his chance, and in a move bred from his need to protect Kurt, he shoves Kurt to the sidewalk while simultaneously grabbing for the gun.

“Oomph! Sebastian!” Kurt screams. His cry joins the sound of feet running toward them, scuffling, cursing, muffled groans of pain, the snap of something that sounds like a large, dry branch, but Kurt realizes is probably a bone.

The gunman screams.

More people call out to them.

The gun goes off.

Kurt hears it ring in his ears. It sounds closer than it originally seemed. He can’t see Sebastian, but he imagines he’s been shot. He imagines Sebastian dead – the love he would never have for his own, dead. He hyperventilates. All those coffee dates, all those dinners they ate together. How many walks in the park, movies watched, nights spent on one another’s couch, and Kurt never outright told Sebastian he loved him? Kurt is such a fool, and that foolishness wants to strangle him. He tries to stand, to see if Sebastian’s alright, but he falls onto the concrete and the world goes black.

Sebastian feels the bullet enter his shoulder. He feels the pressure from the impact. He feels the sear on his skin. He feels muscles separate and sting while nerves go completely numb. One shot seems to tear apart arteries and flesh, but the bullet doesn’t stop there. He registers it moving further into his chest as he falls away from the gunman and onto the ground. He wonders when it will stop. He wonders if he’ll live.

He wonders if he’ll get the chance to tell Kurt everything he truly feels.

He’s been stupid. He realizes it now. Blind and stupid. Maybe finding his soulmate _will_ happen over time, but that doesn’t mean he can’t love now, while he has the chance.

He loves Kurt. He _loves_ him. He should have told him a million times. Every day. A million times a day.

Why did he have to get shot to figure that out?

He blinks once and sees two men grab the asshole with the gun and drag him away.

He blinks again and sees a crowd of people surround him, feels someone take his pulse, hears a woman yell to her companion, “Call 9-1-1!”

He blinks again, and suddenly he sees the crowd from a distance. All of these people – where the fuck were they before? A few of them break away from the cluster and run towards him.

“Are you alright?” a young man asks.

“What?” Sebastian asks, shaking his head.

“Are you alright?” another young man repeats, holding out a hand to help him to his feet.

The first man slaps the second.

“Don’t make him stand!” he scolds. “He might have a concussion!”

A wave of nausea swirls through him, and the whole world shifts to the left before settling back into place.

What the fuck is going on?

Sebastian slowly rises to his feet, with barely any effort, his wounded arm miraculously healed, though his head is threatening to spin off his shoulders. He looks at the two faces staring at him, and beyond them the crowd – so many people gathered, the gunman pinned by the two men to a car, ambulances and police cars screeching around the corner.

Coming for him? He was shot, but he doesn’t have a scratch.

He looks down at his hands and his stomach flips.

Not his hands. Not his shoes. Not his clothes.

“Kurt?” he mumbles. Then the scurry of thoughts and feelings that aren’t entirely his own fall and click in his muddled brain and everything becomes clear.

Kurt is _the one_.

Sebastian’s soulmate.

The man he’s meant to love and have for the rest of his life.

Trapped in a body that is fighting to stay alive.


	157. Twist of Fate - Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For everyone who wanted a continuation to my soulmate AU 'Twist of Fate', here is part two.

Sirens blare, shattering a calm and peaceful night to pieces.

Numerous cars round the corner. Lights spin and spiral as they approach, bouncing off the brick buildings and the people all around – blue, white, and red, blinding and eerie, casting disquieting shadows that stretch long and dysmorphic along the walls.

 _It’s a dream_ , Sebastian convinces himself as the shadows flash and disappear and then flash again, as faces jumble together within the dark and the light. _A horrible, agonizing nightmare –a manifestation of my anxiety at the possibility of losing Kurt to some stupid soulmate. It wouldn’t be the first time. I’ll wake up in my room, and it’ll be the start of a brand new day._

Sebastian blinks, trying to make the lights and the cars and the people evaporate back into his head so he can put this dream behind him and get on with his life.

But everything stays firmly locked in place – the people, the buildings, the loud chirping noise as the officers try to clear the street.

The crowd of curious onlookers and good Samaritans disperse with the arrival of the police and EMTs. The police arrest the gunman pinned by the two men and take him into custody. He kicks and screams in Sebastian’s direction, calling him a sick fuck a few more times before they shove him into the backseat of an awaiting squad car. More officers gather up witnesses by the curb to be questioned. They stand in a single, straight line, looking nervously over at where his body lays, still and unresponsive.

Sebastian observes it all from a distance, up until the surreal moment when he watches his own body loaded onto a gurney and rolled towards an ambulance. Knowing that Kurt is locked inside his unconscious body awakens something inside him, and his feet start to move.

“Wait!” he calls to the EMTs rushing away with his body…and his soulmate. “Wait! That’s my soulmate! That’s my Kurt!”

 _My Kurt_. Those words send a rush of heat over the skin he’s trapped in, despite all the heartache. He had whispered those words in the dark so many times, wanting them to be true. Speaking them out loud, even in Kurt’s voice - there is something magical about them.

The EMTs don’t stop, but one looks back over his shoulder at the man running up behind them.

“This man is your soulmate?” he asks as the others load Sebastian’s body into the ambulance.

“Yes,” Sebastian says, nodding emphatically. “Yes, that’s Kurt…in my body. I’m Sebastian.”

The EMT looks at him, his face oddly blank. He glances at his associate, who has stopped midway while climbing into the ambulance, an equally blank look on his face.

“So, your name is Sebastian,” the first man asks, pulling out a small tablet and stylus from his pocket, “but you’re in your soulmate’s body. And the man on the gurney is your soulmate…”

“Kurt,” Sebastian supplies. “Kurt Hummel.”

“And he’s in your body,” the EMT clarifies, entering the information on the pad.

“Yes.” Sebastian glances anxiously at the ambulance, and then at the other EMT, wondering why they don’t take this information down on the way to the hospital. Kurt desperately needs medical care. That should be obvious, but everything seemed to stop dead at his revelation, and now, everyone is stuck.

“How long have you been swapped?”

The EMT finally reads the anguished expression on the face of the man in front of him, and gestures for Sebastian to climb into the rear of the ambulance.

“Uh, about ten minutes, maybe,” Sebastian answers, pulling himself up the step and climbing in. He takes a seat on the bench beside the gurney.

“You mean…you guys switched?” the EMT asks, knocking on the panel behind the driver to get them moving. ”Just now? When you got shot?”

“Yeah,” Sebastian says. He looks down at his own face – unmoving, deceptive in its tranquility. Sebastian was right. This bodyswap thing _is_ creepy for all of about a minute. He looks at his own face, unconscious, with Kurt somewhere inside. Sebastian sees him – coloring his features, embedded in the lines and creases of his skin, imprinting on him from the center of his being out.

It’s not entirely Kurt, but it’s not entirely Sebastian either.

It’s them. The two of them becoming one person. Whole.

He’s stolen this moment while he waits for more questions, but curiously the silence in the ambulance has continued on. He looks up and sees the two EMTs exchange looks, _significant_ looks, looks that obviously convey more than they’re letting on.

“Why?” Sebastian asks. “What aren’t you guys telling me?”

The first EMT smiles quickly while the second continues to monitor Kurt’s vitals.

“Nothing,” he says. “I just have to ask.”

And that’s the last thing he says for the duration of the ride.

It nags at Sebastian’s mind, but he brushes it aside. It’s not his biggest concern right now.

They speed off through the city, winding along empty streets on their way to the hospital. Sebastian’s eyes never move from his face. He doesn’t speak, but in his head he pleads with Kurt.

_Please, baby. Please, wake up. Just look at me. Please._

By the time they reach the hospital, Kurt still hasn’t woken.

The ambulance pulls to a stop in front of the ER, and through the back window Sebastian can see a medical team waiting to receive them. The EMTs throw the doors open and pull the gurney out with an urgency that in no way equaled how they loaded Kurt in.

Sebastian can hear splintered bits of conversation as they roll his body away – nothing definitive, not even a complete sentence, but a singular point of interest becomes immensely clear. It has bounced back and forth between technicians to the nurses and from doctor to doctor as they head down the hallway – that Kurt and Sebastian switched right when Sebastian got shot.

The gurney flies through several sets of double doors with the entire team pushing it along until they reach a set of thick, silver doors with the words AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY painted in tall, black letters across the width of both of them. The doors open automatically as they approach. Sebastian races to catch up but is intercepted by an older nurse right outside the double doors. She stands in his way and puts her hands up to his chest to stop him.

“Mr. Smythe?” she says, her voice light but authoritative.

Sebastian peeks over her head, trying to maneuver around her, but she anticipates his moves and blocks his path. The last member of the medical team runs through the double doors and they close, sealing Sebastian out.

He glares down at the nurse in front of him.

“My soulmate…”

“Will be prepped for surgery immediately,” the nurse says firmly, leaving no room for argument, “but I need to take _your_ vitals right now.”

Sebastian should have expected this. The way everyone keeps harping over their bodyswap is unnerving, especially the way they seem intent on keeping him in the dark. He has an unsettling feeling that everyone around him knows something that he should know as well.

As soon as he can, he’s pulling out Kurt’s iPhone and hopping online to find out.

He follows the nurse to an examination room and takes a seat while she steps out into the hallway to consult with a colleague. More whispering ensues - more not-so-subtle glances his way. He rolls his eyes and taps Kurt’s feet, obnoxiously making it clear that he’s not too copacetic with waiting. When the nurse returns, she subjects him to a longer examination than he had envisioned – along with his vitals she orders his blood drawn, a cheek swab, and an allergy test. He doesn’t care what else they have to stick him with or what other bodily fluids they need to take, as long as they do it quickly and get it over with so he can sit somewhere and worry in peace.

Mentally, he takes that back.

Kurt’s hair. He can’t let anyone touch Kurt’s hair.

Then suddenly Sebastian laughs. The fact that protecting Kurt’s precious hair popped to the forefront of his mind shows him just how much of Kurt is seeping into his psyche. When the thought dissolves away and he comes back to the present, the two nurses are staring at him with questioning eyes.

“You had to be there,” he says, waving a hand in front of his face, thinking that he needs to tell Kurt about this. He’ll more than likely laugh his gorgeous ass off. Sebastian catches a glimpse of Kurt’s pale skin and the hospital band wrapped around his wrist. He stops laughing. He brings the hand back down to his lap, hiding it from view.

The nurse who separated him from Kurt smiles at him.

“If you follow me, I’ll take you down to the waiting room,” she says.

Sebastian stands, with every movement appreciating Kurt’s body, his fluidity, his inherent grace. It’s in every cell of him, it effuses from every pore. There is no awkwardness at all in the way Kurt moves, and even though Sebastian is not Kurt (Sebastian is still getting used to the ins and outs of managing Kurt’s body) it’s not as difficult a process as he thought it would be. He likes being inside Kurt’s body.

It feels safe.

It feels like home.

Sebastian follows the nurse out of the exam room, expecting to be led to the large, hectic ER waiting room that they had raced through to get here. He looks at the room as they pass it, with rows and rows of chairs, people seated almost on top of each other as they occupy each one, parents with fussy children draped uncomfortably in their laps, adults sitting beside relatives in wheelchairs…some people all alone. They all stare ahead – at the TV playing the news, at the outdated magazines, at each other, at the walls.

“Then what is this?” Sebastian asks, gesturing with a nod of Kurt’s head.

“The waiting room I’m taking you to is especially for soulmates,” she explains. “It’s a little quieter than sitting out here in general population.”

Sebastian likes the idea of quiet.

This hospital, like so many others Sebastian has been to, is a labyrinth of elevators and hallways, leading you around in circles to everywhere other than the place you want to be. If you don’t work there, you seem to need a cryptic pirate treasure map to navigate to the different rooms.

Sebastian wants to be with Kurt, but that’s not going to happen. Not yet.

The further they walk, the quieter the halls become. Few people pass them by. This wing of the hospital seems deserted. It’s calm, but an off-putting calm.

Finding his soulmate is supposed to be the greatest day of his life.

Today, so far, has been almost anything but.

He shouldn’t be here. Kurt shouldn’t be here. None of this is right.

To top it off, there’s a secret hanging over his head like the sword of Damocles, and he doesn’t even know what it is.

Down at the end of a long, empty hall Sebastian sees a door – the oubliette where he’s about to be dumped and, he fears, forgotten.

The nurse pats him on the shoulder, a gentle nudge to get him to step inside, and then she leaves, rushing back the way they came.

He doesn’t turn to watch her go.

The room is small, which doesn’t thrill Sebastian. He wants to hide off in the farthest corner and be effectively ignored until the doctor comes in to tell him what’s going on. The waiting room is both soothing and clinical, which Sebastian wouldn’t have considered possible if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes. The chairs are grey - not Dior grey, but still a soft, appealing grey. Kurt would hate it. _Parochial_ , he would say. How a shade of grey could be offensive, Sebastian would never understand. But Kurt did, and that was why someday he was going to be a famous designer. The walls are a cream color, and they reflect the low, golden lights all around so that instead of being harsh and bright, the room glows. It’s warm. It’s inviting. It’s comforting.

It gives off the aura that everything will be alright, even if that is the furthest possible reality.

At this hour of the night, there is practically no one here.

Sebastian sweeps a glance around the room once before he finds a seat inside. A middle-aged man sits by one of the seats closest to the door. He’s hunched over with his elbows digging into his knees, sitting so far to the edge of the chair that one swift push would probably send him sprawling to the floor. He’s wound tight like a spring. Sebastian can feel his anxiety pulsating off of him. He has his hands folded beneath his chin, but his fingers thrum against the back of his hands like nothing in the world could keep them still. Sebastian wonders how long he’s been here. He looks like he’s going to leap from his chair any minute.

Further in the room sits a trio of women, eyes shut in meditation. A dark skinned-woman sitting cross-legged on the floor holds hands with a fair skinned, ginger haired woman seated beside her, and between them sits a young girl with unnaturally pale skin, a Mohawk of spiky purple hair, and dressed entirely in black – black net shirt with a black tank underneath, black denim skirt strategically torn and frayed, black and white striped stockings, and black Doc Marten boots. It’s the boots Sebastian finds himself fixated on. They’re the same boots Kurt wore all the time in high school. It seemed like he had a hundred pair of those clunky things, each in a different color.

Outside of his voice and his tight ass jeans, they were almost his defining feature.

Along with his pale skin…and his prismatic eyes.

Sebastian recants. Kurt didn’t have a _defining_ feature. He is and always will be a creature of particular excellence.

He lifts his gaze from the girl’s boots and notices her violet eyes staring back at him.

 _Those can’t be her natural color_ , Sebastian thinks.

He nods and she smiles, her eyes following him as he walks, fascinated by something about him as well.

 _Oh, please, don’t come over here_ , Sebastian thinks over and over, finding the most secluded area in the room to sit and officially start his waiting.

The girl watches him sit, and then closes her eyes again, returning to whatever she had been doing before he arrived.

Sebastian looks down at his hands – Kurt’s hands. He runs his fingers over them, marveling at the sensations – so alike, but so different. Kurt’s hands are smoother, softer, so unblemished and delicate for such a strong, uncompromising man. These are the hands Sebastian wants to hold forever, to the end of the world and back. He can hold them now, but they give him little comfort without Kurt here beside him.

Sebastian can feel eyes watching him, but he chooses to ignore them. He has no reason to acknowledge anyone else’s pain but his own.

He’s not looking for comradery or a friend, but when he sees the young girl from the coven across the way approach him, he doesn’t have the heart to tell her to _fuck off_.

“Hey,” the girl says, sitting down in the chair one over from where Sebastian is planted, staring at his clasped hands – his last ditch effort to appear invisible.

“Hey,” he says anyway.

“My name’s Chelsea,” the girl offers, nodding her head of spiked purple hair, silver earrings in several holes swaying as she does.

“I’m…well…I’m Sebastian,” Sebastian says, not too eager to explain the specifics of his situation to yet another person.

The girl nods again.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Chelsea asks.

“Not particularly,” Sebastian answers, taking a breath in and hiding his face behind his hands. He waits a moment to see if the girl in the nostalgic black Doc Marten boots will go away.

She doesn’t.

“Do _you_ want to talk about it?” Sebastian asks, muffled voice behind his hands sounding tight.

He peeks up and Chelsea shrugs.

“I’ve got it covered.” She motions over her shoulder to the two women with their hands linked, eyes closed.

“Are your moms…praying?” Sebastian sits up, feeling slightly guilty that this girl came over to make sure he was alright and he responded by being rude to her.

“Kind of,” Chelsea says. “Only one is my mom, and they’re asking for blessings from the Goddess…and guidance.”

Sebastian raises an eyebrow, surprised at how easy the expression is in Kurt’s body. In his own, it takes a bit more work and sometimes gives him a small cramp.

“Blessings?” he asks. “Blessings for who? For your dad?”

“Nah,” Chelsea says with a shake of her head. “For my soulmate, Lydia. She has leukemia.”

Sebastian sits up taller.

“Wait…your soulmate? But you’re like…twelve.”

“I’m fourteen,” she corrects with a giggle. “But we’ve been soulmates since we were eight.”

“I didn’t think that was possible.”

“It’s rare,” she says, shrugging with one shoulder, “but it happens.”

Sebastian falls silent, unsure what say.

Neither of them are in the best position, but Kurt’s odds might be minutely better.

“Do you still not want to talk about it?” she asks.

Sebastian looks at her, wide and honest violet-colored eyes staring at him, tired but patient, and wiser than her age. Sebastian feels a need to talk to someone, and he has a feeling that this girl will understand.

“There’s this man,” Sebastian starts, “that hated me all through high school, and I tried to hate him back because he wouldn’t go out with me. And then one day, we ended up in the same place at the same time, and we knew. We knew without saying a word that we were in love.”

Chelsea sighs fondly, her bubble-gum pink lips curling into a smile.

“Was that when you became soulmates?”

“No,” Sebastian responds with a grimace. “No, it didn’t happen until _years_ later.”

Chelsea tilts her head and looks at him with narrowed eyes.

“You don’t like the idea of soulmates,” she deduces.

“Well, it wasn’t a concept that I particularly cared for…”

“Until recently?”

Sebastian nods before he answers.

“Yup.”

“Until you got the soulmate you wanted?”

Sebastian’s lips struggle not to smile.

“Yes.”

“Do you have a picture of him?” Chelsea sits up straight and kicks her heels against the floor, waiting with her hands pressed together.

Sebastian leans in.

“You’re looking at him.”

Chelsea’s smile drops.

“Ouch,” she says. She puts a hand to the collar of her shirt and tugs out a half-heart charm on a chain around her neck. She turns the charm over and over in her fingers, and Sebastian can make out the name on the smooth side – _Lydia_.

“Yeah.” Sebastian drops back into his seat, one eye following the heart charm as Chelsea folds her hand around it. “I was shot tonight by a mugger. I felt the bullet enter my body, but when I woke up, I was him and he was me. I was trying to protect him, but somehow that all backfired, and now he’s in surgery and I’m in here.”

Sebastian bows his head. He had hoped that telling his tale would have relieved some of the weight from his shoulders, but now he feels heavier than he did before.

A dainty hand reaches out and covers his.

“I’m really sorry,” the girl says softly.

“Yeah,” Sebastian says. His first instinct is to scoff at her sympathy, but her words are not empty, and his cynicism is not deserved, especially when this girl is dealing with heartbreak of her own.

“What is your soulmate’s name?” Chelsea asks.

“K-Kurt,” Sebastian says, and for the first time, his voice almost fails.

“Kurt,” she repeats. “We’ll ask for blessings from the Goddess for your soulmate, too.”

“You don’t have to,” Sebastian laughs dryly.

“You don’t believe in a higher power, huh,” she says astutely.

“I’m not a big one for faith.”

“That’s alright.” The girl stands up and squeezes his hand. “I have faith enough for both of us.”

With a reassuring smile, she returns to her group, sitting back among the two women, who open their eyes and welcome her back to the circle. Chelsea says something Sebastian can’t hear, and both women turn their faces to look at him, acknowledging him with their genuine smiles and their shining eyes. They return to their circle and once again, Sebastian is alone.

Over an hour later, Sebastian finally hears the echo of footsteps coming down the hall – the first sign of life since he was deposited here. A doctor walks in, and all eyes in the room turn toward the door.

“Mr. Espinoza?” the doctor calls out.

The man in the seat by the door, who hasn’t stopped his obsessive fidgeting, stands from his chair, and the rest of the room returns to their wishing and praying. Out of morbid curiosity, Sebastian listens to the doctor talk to the man who has been on the edge of insanity since he got there. Sebastian has fingers crossed for him. He has this crazy notion that if this man’s soulmate comes out okay, that everyone else’s soulmate will be alright, too.

It’s foolish and naïve, and Kurt probably wouldn’t approve, but right now it’s all he’s got.

“Mr. Espizona…” the tone of the doctor’s voice when he says the man’s name doesn’t sound promising, and the entire room of surreptitious onlookers collectively holds their breath, “it’s a girl. Congratulations!”

And with those words, a communal chain lifts, a chain that connected everyone together, and they sigh with relief.

It’s a victory for this one man, but it’s shared by them all.

“Oh, thank the Lord,” the man mutters, crossing himself repeatedly, “and my wife?”

“She’s in recovery, but she’s going to be just fine,” the doctor announces. “You can see her when she wakes up, but let me take you to your daughter.”

“Yes,” the man says, nodding and grinning, his hands folded over his heart as he holds himself together. He turns to regard the remaining members of the waiting room with a look of joy, but also pity, and Sebastian knows what he’s really thinking as he hurries after the doctor and away to his wife.

_He’s glad he’s no longer one of us._

“One down, two to go,” the dark-skinned woman says. Chelsea winks at Sebastian and smiles.

Two hours pass after Mr. Espinoza left, and again the chain settles around them. Hope in the room begins to wane. Chelsea is asleep in Lydia’s mother’s lap while her own mother paces the floor. She stares at the carpet, following the same route, tracing the geometric pattern with her steps. From the intensity of her gaze, Sebastian can tell she’s not just marking time. She’s thinking twelve steps ahead.

Sebastian admires that. For over three hours he’s been stuck in the moment, and he can’t seem to move forward without knowing whether or not Kurt’s okay.

More footsteps echo down the hall and another doctor walks in. The woman looks up, but the doctor walks straight for Sebastian, so she keeps up her pacing with her stride unbroken.

Even before the doctor speaks, he smiles, and Sebastian wants to leap into the air.

“Mr. Smythe?” the doctor says, the same way the other doctor had addressed Mr. Espinoza.

“Yes, yes,” Sebastian says, not yet used to hearing Kurt’s higher-pitched voice speak for him.

“The surgery was a complete success. You are one lucky bastard, Mr. Smythe.” The doctor pats him on the shoulder as if they are friends, and Sebastian, who hates that kind of posturing, can’t find it in himself to mind. “The bullet managed to miss every major artery, every organ, and lodge in your ribcage. You shattered some bone, but that’s all. It's been fixed up and your body is on the mend.”

Sebastian’s reflex is to bounce on the balls of his feet, which is the way Kurt always reacts to exciting news, and that makes the smile on Sebastian’s face grow wider. He turns his head to look at Chelsea, almost needing to share this news with her, but she’s still asleep. Her mother sends him a small smile in her stead.

“My. Smythe,” the doctor says, pulling his focus back. “Please follow me.”

Sebastian walks out the door of the hidden waiting room, and even though his heart sincerely aches for Chelsea, hoping that everything turns out alright for her and Lydia, the same thought that Mr. Espinoza carried out with him crosses his mind.

_Thank God that isn’t me anymore._

“So, when can I see Kurt?” Sebastian asks, itching to blow past the doctor and head to his room, to sit by his bedside until he wakes up, to kiss him and tell him how much he loves him.

Everything’s going to be alright from now on.

Sebastian would see to it.

Sebastian would take care of Kurt for the rest of his life.

The doctor stops walking. His smile slips, and Sebastian knows it’s not going to be that easy.

“Mr. Smythe,” he begins, “I’m going to tell you this straight out, because I think right now that’s what you need to hear.”

Sebastian swallows, preparing for the worst, not even sure what the worst (besides Kurt outright dying) could possibly be.

The doctor fixes Sebastian with intelligent but exhausted brown eyes and takes a cleansing breath.

“We don’t know where your soulmate’s soul is.”

 

 


	158. A Dalton Boy on His Knees

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On a dare, Sebastian goes to a BDSM club where he meets a young dom and the club’s owner, Kurt, who takes Sebastian on as his pet for the night. (Warning for shaming, bondage, flogging, age difference but not underage, smoking, and slightly genderfluid dressing.)
> 
> Dalton Boy has become its own dedicated series that can be found with more chapters listed under my works.

It starts with a dare among the upper classmen. Wes found out about the club on a weekend trip to Columbus with his parents, and a lot of big talk later there were plans to go and wagers made, carpools assigned, but as luck would have it Sebastian is the only one who follows through. He is more intrigued and excited than he outwardly admits, not wasting time to change out of his Dalton uniform when he leaves so as not to get stuck in afternoon traffic. He arrives at the BDSM club ten minutes earlier than planned, but over an hour later he’s still standing outside alone.

“Fucking cowards,” Sebastian mutters beneath his breath, but he’s not going to spend the evening slinking back to Dalton without seeing any action just to bitch about being stood up by his pussy friends.

Sebastian stands in the shadows and watches the customers walk by, trying to get a feel for the clientele, waiting for an opening to jump in. He’s normally not so nervous, but deep down he knows this isn’t a regular bar or night club, and even though he played out this scenario a dozen times in his head on the drive over, he’s not sure how to begin.

A tall, thin man rushes by and catches Sebastian staring from his hiding place against the wall. The dress code everyone here lives by seems to require tight jeans, some sort of revealing top, leather and spike accessories, black eye makeup, and en excessive amount of piercings. The man speeding by has taken this look to extremes – a ring of liquid liner perfectly applied around his eyelids; multiple rings in his ears, his eyebrow, and his nose; and spiked bracers on both arms. Their eyes lock for a second before the man breezes into the club as if he owns it.

“Live past your stereotype,” Sebastian mumbles with a huff. He waits a few more minutes, checking his cell phone one last time for a text, a missed call, anything, before finally making the decision to wander inside. He pushes off the wall, searching his back pocket for his wallet and his fake I.D.

“Hey, preppy,” a distinctly high and authoritative voice calls out, commanding Sebastian’s attention. “Are you out here looking for trouble?”

The thin man he had seen enter the club earlier is bearing down on him, having exited the club from a rear door and circling around the building toward the entrance.

“Jeez,” Sebastian says, leaning back against the wall to soak this man in, his uniquely beautiful face scowling at Sebastian with an unexplained expression of disgust. “Could you be anymore cliché?”

“I could,” the man says, crowding Sebastian in, putting a hand on each side of his head and pinning him with his body, “if I had the time to fuck around. But I’m getting a little sick and tired of you privileged Catholic school boys coming here and harassing my customers. So if that’s what you are, you can blow away on your own or I can call my bouncer out here and he can make you take a walk…” The man bounces his head back and forth with a look of mock contemplation on his face. “…but probably minus one testicle. It’s your call.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Sebastian takes a defensive step back but with nowhere to go he smacks his head onto the brick behind him. “I’m definitely not a Catholic school boy,” Sebastian chuckles, not missing the irony. “I’m actually a customer.”

The man steps away from Sebastian and raises an eyebrow, grazing over Sebastian’s uniform with wary eyes.

“I-I was supposed to meet some friends, but they wimped out on me,” Sebastian explains, feeling the heat from this man’s glare on his skin, searing him like a branding iron.

“I see,” the man says, his voice somewhat calmer, not entirely impressed by Sebastian’s story but apparently convinced that parts of it are true. “So, are you afraid to go inside, or do you need some…guidance?”

Sebastian’s mouth goes dry. His first instinct in any normal club would be to buy this man as many drinks as it would take to convince him to follow him into the bathroom for a quickie, but Sebastian can’t quite imagine taking him on his hands and knees. This man is in his element here and quite obviously has the upper hand, which puts him in control. Sebastian has never met a man like him before. He’s not necessarily intimidated by him, but he can’t help but be a bit in awe of him - his confident strut when he walks, his ‘I’m hot as fuck and I know it’ attitude, his shit eating grin, and the subtle simmer in his ever changing blue-green eyes. It brings out something unusual in Sebastian, something he knows he’s never felt before. He wouldn’t mind giving in to this man; wouldn’t mind bending to his whims, especially if it gives him the opportunity to take a peek at what’s hiding beneath his severely tight jeans.

Suddenly he’s thankful that no one else showed up.

“A little assistance might be nice.” Sebastian’s normally smooth, cool demeanor falters beneath the other man’s disarming, hungry grin. “This is my first time at a club like this.”

“If you need some help, what would you say to being mine for the night?” the man offers.

“I don’t know,” Sebastian says with a shrug, looking the young dom up and down, from the purple streak in his upswept hair, to the oversized gauge in his left earlobe, the flock of small blackbirds tattooed around his neck, down his black net shirt, and his knee-high stiletto boots, shiny patent leather gleaming like an oil-slick beneath the arch sodium street lights. “I guess I’m up for anything.”

“I’m Kurt.”

“Sebastian.” His name almost catches in his throat when Kurt’s eyes travel down his body, sizing him up, lingering somewhere around his waist, and return back up to his eyes.

“Do you have some I.D.?” Kurt asks, raising a hand and making a motion with his fingers. Sebastian pulls out the driver’s license he paid way too much money to have made, but he considers it money well spent when Kurt hands it back with a pacified nod.

“Well then…” Kurt tilts his head, his blue eyes shining in the shifting light, “we’ll start you off as a puppy, which means you’ll spend the night on your hands and knees. Do you think you can handle that?”

“I think so, Kurt,” Sebastian responds nonchalantly.

Kurt’s eyes immediately go dark.

“No, no, no,” Kurt tuts. “You refer to me, when I allow you to speak, as _master._ Understand?”

“Absolutely.” Sebastian nods, biting back the urge to roll his eyes.

Kurt crowds against him again, and the heat that radiates from his eyes, the no-nonsense self-control, kills any urge Sebastian has to sass him back.

“I am your _master,”_ Kurt repeats in a low, dangerous tone, “and you are my _pet._ You will not speak unless spoken, too…” Then Kurt backs away, and his eyes become softer. “But if there’s anything I do that makes you uncomfortable, your safe word is ‘butterfly’. Understand?”

Sebastian swallows.

“I understand,” he says in a more respectful voice.

Kurt curls his fingers into the Windsor knot of Sebastian’s tie and tugs sharply down, bringing Sebastian to his knees. He turns the tie around, using it as a leash.

“Then come along, puppy,” Kurt says in a sing-song voice, pulling Sebastian along with him through the double doors of the club.

The room they enter is dark, the music loud, but from what Sebastian can see it looks like any ordinary club. Sebastian scuttles along after Kurt, trying his best to keep up, never realizing how difficult it would be to crawl on the floor before he agreed to it. They enter the main room and Sebastian can see the legs of tables and chairs, and a faux wooden dance floor. Wandering around are other doms parading their human pets, some with collar and leashes, in all manner of dress and undress. Sebastian sweeps his eyes over the groups gathered around the room. He finds it unreal how much pleasure these pet subs seem to get from being made to heel. Some of them lie at their master’s feet; some curl around their master’s legs; some sit up straight at attention waiting on commands.

In any other situation, Sebastian might find this behavior dehumanizing, but sitting at Kurt’s feet while Kurt runs massaging fingers through his hair gives Sebastian a tremendous sense of peace, of safety, and with that, an urge to please Kurt.

An hour later, however, Sebastian is bored as shit. Kurt and his friends jabber away about fashion, about some school called NYADA, but most of all about musical theater of all things. Sebastian rolls his eyes more than once, much to the dismay of another dom’s pet sitting across from him who tries to signal him with wide, pleading eyes to stop.

“Whatever,” Sebastian mutters, and that single word, spoken without permission, catches Kurt’s attention.

The conversation at the table stops dead. The other doms sitting with Kurt look playfully affronted with wicked grins on their faces, while the other sub simply gives up on his wayward friend and lies contentedly at his master’s feet.

“Oh, preppy,” Kurt coos condescendingly, cupping Sebastian’s head in his hands and talking to him nose to nose the way he would address a disobedient dog. “You broke the rules, pretty boy.”

“What are you going to do with him, Kurt?” a bubbly African-American woman seated at the table asks. “I mean, he’s only a puppy after all.”

The baby talk gets on Sebastian’s last nerve but he focuses on staring straight ahead and waits for Kurt’s decided punishment.

“It’s his first infraction.” Kurt screws up his face and looks at the ceiling, giving the matter some not so serious thought. “Maybe I’ll go easy on him.” Kurt looks back at Sebastian and smiles, running a finger over Sebastian’s lips, making them tingle. “I think that pretty mouth of his can lick my boot.”

Sebastian hears Kurt, but he doesn’t move. He can’t have heard what he thought he heard.

Kurt fixes Sebastian with hard, determined eyes.

“Lick my boot,” he commands firmly.

Sebastian locks eyes with Kurt, defiant green challenging a more amused blue.

“No?” Kurt asks when Sebastian continues to stare. “Well, then that makes two strikes for you, puppy.”

“Uh-oh…” another dom at the table, an older blond with a distinct British accent, says.

Kurt slips from his chair and kneels on the ground beside Sebastian, pushing with a hand between his shoulder blades until he’s lying with his cheek pressed flat against the ground.

“You look like the kind of boy who gets by on his charm and wraps people around your finger,” Kurt whispers. “You probably have a whole harem of little boy toys at that expensive school of yours jizzing all over themselves to do whatever you tell them to.” Kurt’s amused smile grows into a devilish grin. “I think I know exactly what you deserve.”

Kurt sits back up on his chair and beams.

“Two strikes!” Kurt announces to the table. “You all know what that means!”

Laughter rises up around them, and the blond man smacks the table with the flat of his hand as if sharing the hidden punch line of a shared joke.

Kurt turns his attention back to Sebastian with laughing blue eyes.

“Puppy needs to be spanked,” Kurt says, overemphasizing his words to be sure they’re understood, “so puppy is going to get flogged.”

Kurt bends down to grab hold of Sebastian’s tie, pulling him up till Sebastian is kneeling close to Kurt’s mouth.

“Please tell me you’re at least 18.”

Sebastian scoffs quietly, then bites his tongue hard to keep from doing anything else stupid, but Kurt seems to let it slide.

“You saw my I.D. I’m 21,” Sebastian insists.

Kurt shakes his head.

“Yeah, and I’ve seen enough fake I.D.’s in my time working here to spot one from 50 miles away,” Kurt hisses. “Yours is good, I’ll give you that, but it’s not real.”

Sebastian sighs in defeat.

“Yeah, I’m 18.”

“Excellent,” Kurt says brightly, standing and pulling Sebastian, practically dragging him across the floor when he stumbles trying to keep up, falling forward and knocking his right elbow into a chair leg.

“We’re headed to the paddle room,” Kurt calls to onlookers as they pass by, “if anyone wants to come.”

The hair on the back of Sebastian’s neck prickles and stands on end at the thought of a crowd of people trailing after them to watch him get spanked, but only a few couples take the bait.

The paddle room is about the size of a small classroom, empty except for a set of long benches along the walls. There are some strange pieces of furniture and various odd implements scattered around that Sebastian doesn’t get the time to examine since he’s being dragged along to a pair of wood blocks in the center of the room.

“This is my favorite,” Kurt says. “We call it the pew. A lot of praying happens here.”

The pew is two long pieces of polished wood set a few feet apart with shackles and cuffs chained at each end. Kurt stops Sebastian in front of it. He drops the tie and circles Sebastian lazily. Sebastian hears Kurt’s heels click against the smooth floor and then stop somewhere behind him. Kurt pulls Sebastian’s pants and his boxers down to his knees, and then rolls his shirt and his blazer up his back, exposing him to all eyes in the room. Sebastian shivers, blushing over every inch of skin, which is definitely a feat since not much makes Sebastian blush.

Sebastian isn’t ashamed of his body, but being laid bare in public, made vulnerable partially for other people’s amusement, is not something he’s used to. It’s uncomfortable and demeaning. Still, being flogged by Kurt anywhere seems super hot, and Sebastian isn’t willing to back down. He’s in this for the long haul.

Kurt settles him over the wooden blocks, starting by spreading his legs wide to secure Sebastian at the knees to the ends of the first wood block, and then pulling his body forward to cuff his wrists to the second wood block. It’s awkward but not too uncomfortable…until Kurt pulls the wooden blocks apart, stretching Sebastian out across a farther distance in an extended plank position. Sebastian’s stomach muscles strain to keep his body upright, and Sebastian clenches his teeth to suppress a groan.

“Nice abs, preppy,” Kurt says, patting Sebastian’s stomach and humming appreciatively. “You must have some incredible stamina.” Kurt crouches down and whispers so only Sebastian can hear. “Could you imagine me fucking you on this thing?”

Sebastian closes his eyes, a sudden rush forcing the blood in his brain south of the equator as he envisions this beautifully pierced and tattooed man pounding in him from behind, completely naked, manicured nails digging into Sebastian’s hips, that sing-song voice chanting Sebastian’s name over and over and over…breathy…broken…

"Open your eyes, preppy,” Kurt purrs, “there’s something I want you to see.”

Sebastian’s eyelids open slowly, and then blow wide at the flogger in Kurt’s hand.

Kurt grips a stunted handle wrapped in red leather. Twelve braided black leather plaits spill from the end, and at the tip of each, a perfect red leather rose. Sebastian’s flexes his hands in his cuffs, his palms sweating profusely. His whole body shudders as he breathes too quickly.

Sebastian’s not afraid of many things, but he’s not an idiot. He doesn’t like pain.

“Calm down, preppy,” Kurt mutters soothingly. “You know the safe word. Say it once, and this all ends…but I promise you, you’ll enjoy it.” Kurt runs the flogger up and down the length of Sebastian’s back, the leather roses stroking his skin like fingertips; gentle, light touches that raise goose flesh all over and Sebastian starts to relax. He breathes in deep and melts against the wood. Kurt gives Sebastian no warning, so when Kurt pulls back and lets the flogger fly, the strike startles Sebastian more than anything. The roses land in a spray over his body, some hitting his spine, most hitting his ass, a stray one or two brushing his balls. He yelps, a sound that’s a confused mixture of pain and surprise. Around him voices titter. He hears muffled whispers and the shushing of doms to one or two less disciplined subs.

Kurt gives Sebastian a moment to register the strike, and then hits him again in roughly the same spot. Sebastian jumps, but doesn’t yelp quite as loudly this time.

“So how was that, puppy?” Kurt drawls. Sebastian can hear the smirk in his voice, the subtle tease, embedded layers of control.

“Oh my God,” is all Sebastian can manage through quivering lips. He doesn’t know what else to say. He’s never been spanked by anyone in his life. Once the sting dies down, once the pain ebbs away, every inch of his body sparks with arousal.

“Shall I do it again?” Kurt asks, standing smugly poised beside Sebastian’s body with the flogger at the ready.

Sebastian considers the question for a second. Does he want to be spanked again?

“Yes,” Sebastian rushes in a desperate breath.

“Yes, what?” Kurt asks tightly.

“Yes…please?” Even as the words leave his mouth he knows he’s forgetting something. He wracks his brain for the right answer, his head muddled by the heat rising along his bruised cheeks and the need to feel that flogger against his skin.

“Yes…please…what?” Kurt leads him along, fanning the tails of the flogger over Sebastian’s back. He feels the breeze of them swaying back and forth, but they don’t touch him, and God does he want them to touch him.

“Yes…master.” He comes to it with a triumphant chirp that makes Kurt laugh.

Kurt strikes Sebastian again, three times in succession, and Sebastian’s body trembles, his wrists straining in the cuffs. Kurt takes a moment to circle Sebastian’s prone, bound body and admire the view – the welts forming on his skin, his muscles fighting to keep him suspended, and his tight hole clenching with every hit. Kurt swings and slaps him again, a little harder to see that hole tighten around thin air. Kurt’s own cock responds to the thought of those muscles closing around him, fitting over him like a glove.

“Are you going to fuck your puppy?” a faceless voice calls from somewhere in the room.

“I might,” Kurt teases, “if he was being a good puppy.”

Kurt hovers by Sebastian’s ear, muttering softly from behind, “and if he was old enough to legally be here.”

Kurt straightens up and swings again, and this time a fatigued Sebastian grunts out loud. His reaction to being spanked is so glorious – sweat beading along his back, his legs quivering with effort, his cock, flushed and throbbing, curved up against his taut stomach. Kurt strikes him again and watches as Sebastian’s cock bounces in response.

“I don’t think I’ll have to fuck him to make him cum,” Kurt comments aloud with a satisfied giggle and another hit.

Kurt’s cock is growing painfully in his own jeans, and he begins to question who’s really the one being punished here. It almost makes Kurt weep at the thought of how long it’s been since he’s fucked an eighteen-year-old.

“Have you ever had an orgasm off the end of a flogger?” Kurt taunts. He lets the tails trail between the crack of Sebastian’s ass, the rose ends playing over his balls. Sebastian squirms, trying to follow the plaits as they leave his skin.

“No, master,” Sebastian grumbles in frustration, so close to cumming, so close to collapsing.

Kurt hits him again and again, giving him no time to rest, edging him closer, and when Sebastian’s arms and legs are about to give out, Kurt stops and steps away from the pew, taking a long, deep breath to steady himself.

“God, you do want it, don’t you?” Kurt pants, as ready to explode as Sebastian looks. “You’re so hot and ready for it, aren’t you?”

Sebastian’s not entirely sure this isn’t more than a rhetorical question, but he can’t help answering it anyway.

“Yes, master,” he says, the word a barely audible sound.

“Come on, puppy,” Kurt says, crouching down and threading his fingers through Sebastian’s sweaty hair. “Tell me you want it.”

“I w-want it, master,” Sebastian stammers.

“Beg for it.” Kurt yanks hard on a fistful of Sebastian’s hair, his lips so close to Sebastian’s mouth that Sebastian can taste Kurt’s breath – hot and sweet and intoxicating.

“P-please…m-master...”

“I’ll give you what you want…” Kurt releases Sebastian’s hair and his head drops on his tired neck, “…if you lick my boot.”

Kurt stands and raises a knee, resting his stiletto heel on the wood block in front of Sebastian’s face, inches from his mouth. Sebastian pants, watching his breath condense on the shiny surface. This time Sebastian doesn’t hesitate. He attacks Kurt’s boot as if it was his mouth, placing an open mouthed kiss to the ankle, licking over the joint and polishing the patent leather with his tongue.

“That’s it, puppy,” Kurt murmurs, leaning over and lashing Sebastian again.

Sebastian moans into the leather of Kurt’s boot, the sound sending delicious vibrations tickling up Kurt’s body, all along his spine. Sebastian hears the sounds of quiet muttering and whining in the dark outskirts of the room, the sounds of cuffs and shackles being locked as other inspired doms start sessions of their own around them.

“I’m going to make you cum just like this,” Kurt groans, lash after lash snapping against Sebastian’s skin, and Sebastian wonders in a brief moment of clarity amidst the haze of his mounting orgasm how close Kurt might be to cumming. Would Sebastian know if he does? Kurt seems so put together, so in control.

It suddenly doesn’t matter when Sebastian feels the strikes get harder, coming faster, splintering along his ass, slipping into his crack, grazing his balls, a few strikes managing to propel the plaits around his hips to skim the roses along his throbbing shaft. Sebastian sweats across his forehead and into his eyes, finding it harder and harder to focus on his task, especially since his mind has begun to drift and he imagines licking over Kurt’s pale skin, tracing his tattoos, his piercings, chasing that flavor of sweet and hot in his mouth, exploring his body to see if he can find it anywhere else.

What would it take to make Kurt squirm, to make him cry out in ecstasy?

What does Sebastian have to do to find out?

Sebastian’s orgasm barrels through him like a freight train, hit after hit, until his muscles give out and he can barely move, every nerve overwhelmed by the mixed sensations of pleasure and pain; too much with not enough. If Kurt came, Sebastian doesn’t know, though when Kurt undoes Sebastian’s cuffs and pulls him into his arms, cradling Sebastian’s spent and half-dressed body against him, there’s no mistaking the wild thrumming of Kurt’s heart in his chest.

Kurt holds Sebastian against him, making vague and obscure hand gestures to someone in the room, and the next thing Sebastian is aware of is a warm, wet cloth cleaning him up; steady hands pulling up his pants and fastening his fly.

Sated and utterly at ease, Sebastian can feel himself fall away in Kurt’s arms. He must have started to doze off because he hears Kurt laugh where his ear rests against Kurt’s chest, and a hand shaking him gently. Sebastian rolls his head on his shoulders to look up into the dom’s eyes.

“You smoke cloves?” Kurt asks, pulling a pack from his pocket and giving it a little wiggle.

“Yeah,” Sebastian says unconvincingly. “Yeah, sure.”

“Of course you do,” Kurt smirks. “Why don’t we go outside and talk.”

Kurt stands, but Sebastian positions himself on his hands and knees, preparing to crawl.

“No, no,” Kurt chuckles, grabbing Sebastian’s arm and pulling him to his feet, “I think you’ve earned the right to stand.”

Kurt holds Sebastian’s elbow and leads him to a hidden fire exit door in the paddle room, opening it and walking outside, letting the door shut behind them. Sebastian watches Kurt hit the pack of cigarettes against the palm of his hand. An awkward silence threatens to surround them so Sebastian says the first lame thing that pops into his mind.

“So is this really your club?”

“Yup,” Kurt says, taking a clove cigarette out of the pack and offering one to Sebastian. He smiles wickedly when Sebastian takes it and holds it ungainly between his fingers. “Well, it’s a partnership between me and an old friend from school.”

“How old are you?” Sebastian asks as he watches Kurt light his cigarette.

“What do you mean ‘how old are you’?” Kurt takes a drag off his cigarette, blowing the smoke out quickly from the corner of his mouth. “Fuck you, that’s how old I am.”

Sebastian smiles, more bashful schoolboy than the overly confident smirk he’s used to wearing.

“It’s just that you look awfully young to be the owner of a club like this.”

Kurt flicks the lighter in front of Sebastian’s face. Sebastian puts the cigarette between his lips, inhaling deep when Kurt lights the end. The sweet smelling smoke burns his lungs and he coughs violently. He stands up straight and takes a deep breath of cool air. He attempts several times to look cool and save face, just to double over again in a fit of unattractive gagging.

“Those things will kill you anyway,” Kurt laughs, clapping Sebastian hard on the back. Sebastian nods in agreement, but holds tight to his cigarette, backing out of Kurt’s reach when he tries to grab it away.

“How do you like my club?” Kurt leans against the wall and takes another long drag, deciding to let Sebastian fumble with his cigarette by himself.

“It’s not really my scene,” Sebastian admits, joining Kurt at his spot on the wall, “but it could be.”

Kurt blows out a mouthful of smoke into the night air, then turns to look at Sebastian.

“You like being a dog?” Kurt asks.

Sebastian inhales, managing to take a drag and exhale without sounding like he’s choking to death.

“I like being your dog.”

Kurt shakes his head.

“Don’t get attached to me,” Kurt advises sternly, but with a flattered half-smile on his lips. “I’m not always so nice.”

“That’s perfect,” Sebastian says, feeling his old, cocky self returning, “because I don’t do nice.”

Kurt stares at Sebastian with narrow eyelids, quietly smoking his cigarette, lost in thought.

“Look, what I do here…we have strict rules,” Kurt explains. “That’s why I don’t fuck underage subs here. I have to keep my liquor license.”

Sebastian nods as if what Kurt said made any sense.

“But, in my private life I’m a bit more lenient.” Kurt reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a business card holder, gold metal inlaid with mother of pearl. He flips it open and pulls out a violet colored business card with black embossed lettering.

“Why don’t you give me a call,” Kurt says, handing the card over. “And maybe we can work something out.”

Sebastian takes the card and looks it over, memorizing the phone number quickly in case anything happens to it.

“Too bad I won’t get the chance to have you fuck me on that pew,” Sebastian chuckles nervously.

Kurt drops his cigarette and grinds it out on the cement with the toe of his boot.

“I have one of those at home.”

Kurt winks suggestively and heads back toward the club. Sebastian doesn’t want to see him go. He needs to have those eyes on him a while longer, hear his voice one last time before he leaves.

“I’ll give you a call. I promise.”

Kurt stops mid-step, his stiletto heel clicking loudly on the cement, and spins back around.

“Now, that’s something different.” Kurt crosses his arms over his chest and stares significantly at Sebastian.

“What?” Sebastian asks, slightly confused.

“Promises,” Kurt replies. “Promises must be kept, so they must be sealed.”

“H-how do you seal a promise?” Sebastian stutters, captivated by the serious yet playful glimmer in Kurt’s eyes. Kurt pushes Sebastian up against the wall with his body, fitting against him, the feeling of Kurt hard and molding against his skin making Sebastian so ready to go back to the paddle room again.

“You seal a promise with a kiss,” Kurt whispers.

Kurt winds Sebastian’s tie around his finger and tugs, bringing Sebastian’s mouth down to meet his, no invitation offered or needed. He presses his mouth against Sebastian’s, slotting them together, delicate brushes of his tongue against the seam of Sebastian’s lips.

“Oh…” Sebastian gasps when Kurt’s tongue finally slips through, caressing Sebastian’s tongue tenderly. Sebastian melts against the wall at the first sweep of Kurt’s piercing against the roof of his mouth, and he moans as the smooth barbell strokes gently back and forth.

Kurt pins Sebastian back against the wall by his shoulders and pulls away from the kiss with a sly grin at the wrecked look on Sebastian’s face. Sebastian tries to hold Kurt against him with hands cradling his hips, but Kurt effortlessly breaks free.

“Now you _have_ to call me.” Kurt walks backward toward the fire exit and knocks on the metal door behind him. It opens a crack and Sebastian watches Kurt slip through into the darkness, his perfect smile the last thing Sebastian sees before the door shuts and he’s left outside alone once more.

The drive back to Westerville is torture, not because of his sore ass that stings with every bump in the road that his car hits, but because every sting reminds him of Kurt.

It’s after four in the morning when he gets back to Dalton, and the campus is dark except for the senior dorm, where the top floor lights are burning bright. Sebastian walks dreamily to his room, replaying the entire night over and over and over, every brush of Kurt’s fingers in his hair, every snap of leather on his ass, and that kiss – Sebastian can live on that kiss for the rest of his life if he has to.

A line of his traitorous friends peek their heads out from behind their doors as he passes, but no one talks to him until a guilty-looking Trent emerges from his room, dawdling in the hall, watching Sebastian approach.

“So, Seb?” Trent says casually, a few more Warblers venturing out of their rooms to join in the conversation. “How did it go?”

Sebastian eyes the small group, glaring at each boy one by one, but even as annoyed as he was at the beginning of the night over his best friends ditching him, he can’t stop the grin of his face.

“Fuck you bitches,” Sebastian says, heading off to his room with the shadow of a limp that makes Jeff snicker into his boyfriend’s neck. “My lips are sealed.”


	159. A Dalton Boy Looking for Trouble - Pt 1

**A/N:** _The follow-up to 'A Dalton Boy on His Knees'. Rated M. Warning for minor heat play and minor breath play._

Sebastian doesn’t call Kurt right away. He waits for days, playing it cool. He doesn’t want to seem overeager even though every day that passes burns him up inside. He keeps the violet business card tucked into the corner of his desk blotter where he can look at it when he sits down to do his homework, which usually turns into him gazing out his dorm room window to daydream and recall every blissful moment of being spanked by Kurt. Several times he’ll pick up his phone and contemplate - how long is long enough so that he doesn’t seem like a desperate schoolboy?

The welts on his ass have faded, but the memory, still crystal clear, colors everything he does day after day until he nearly can’t stand being away from Kurt any longer.

It’s late Thursday afternoon, after killing it on the lacrosse field, when he decides to make the call, because after practice, sweaty from running, his muscles aching, is when he feels the most confident, the strongest, the most like himself. He sees the time on his cell phone screen and curses. It’s later than he realized. The sun has already started to set and he has no idea when Kurt usually leaves to get to the club. He’d rather not have to leave a message.

He has waited so long to talk to the man himself.

Sebastian dials the number, his hands shaking, but he writes it off as over-exertion on the lacrosse field and not the excitement of talking to Kurt again.

Sebastian smiles at Kurt’s ring-back song – Marilyn Manson’s cover of _I Put a Spell on You_.

He doesn’t get too far into the song before a familiar high-pitched voice mutters through the line, “Hello?”

“Hey,” Sebastian says too brightly and he immediately wants to bite his own tongue out. “Uh…I don’t know if you’ll remember me…”

“Sebastian?” Kurt asks.

Sebastian blushes a furious shade of red at the thought that this man would remember him, remember the sound of his voice. Maybe he has been waiting for Sebastian to call.

“Yeah,” Sebastian says, dropping his head to his desk. Could he be any more lame than the lame he is acting right now?

"It’s about time, preppy," Kurt mumbles. Sebastian imagines Kurt’s lips locked around a clove cigarette while he lies down in bed; naked, tattooed and pierced body on display. "I’m not a man who’s used to being kept waiting."

"Sorry about that, _master_ ," Sebastian teases.

The line goes quiet and Sebastian holds his breath, not sure whether or not he just committed some huge sub faux pas.

"It seems like a spanking did nothing to cure you of your little attitude problem," Kurt says, flat and stern but with the subtlest hint of a smile that Sebastian can feel resonating through his voice. "You know, you have quite a smart mouth on you, preppy,"

"I’ve been told that before," Sebastian continues, eager to see how far Kurt will let this banter go.

"You’re just looking for trouble," Kurt says, and this time he chuckles. "We’re going to have to fix that."

"How exactly do we _fix_ it?" Sebastian asks without considering the consequences.

"Well, you’re going to meet me at the club Friday night at eight o’clock sharp, and you’re going to bring a change of clothes."

Sebastian’s eyes go wide.

"Why bring a change of clothes?" Sebastian asks, trying to picture what Kurt might do to him that would ruin his clothing.

"Because, preppy, your next lesson in discipline is going to take place at my house…" Sebastian hears Kurt take a deep drag of his cigarette and blow the smoke out slowly before returning to the line, "and you’re staying the night."

* * *

 

Kurt said eight o’clock sharp and Sebastian isn’t taking any chances. After the final bell on Friday, he rushes to his room without a word to anyone about his plans and packs his overnight bag. He decides to not change out of his school clothes. He has a feeling that Kurt likes his Dalton uniform. He hits a road block when he can’t decide which outfit to bring, so he ends up stuffing three outfits in his bag, rolling his eyes at his own behavior. He catches his reflection in the mirror – his tousled hair, his flushed cheeks, his creased brow - and scoffs. He barely recognizes himself. What is he doing? This is not the way Sebastian Smythe acts. He doesn’t drop everything and run when another man snaps his fingers. _Sebastian_ sets the rules. _Sebastian_ calls the shots.

He hears the timer that he set on his phone go off and realizes that if he doesn’t leave soon, he might hit traffic. Hitting traffic means being late…and missing his chance with Kurt.

The image his mind conjures of Kurt from when they met – the black stiletto boots (Sebastian swallows, recalling the sensation of the smooth patent leather beneath his tongue), his mesmerizing blue-green eyes, glimpses of pale skin peeking out from beneath his black net shirt – is enough to silence the voice in his head and get him back to packing.

Sebastian doesn’t care what he looks like now. He mentally tells himself to shut the fuck up and zippers up his bag.

He leaves Dalton on time and gets to the club half an hour early. He sits in his car and waits, fidgeting in his seat as he watches Kurt from a distance. Kurt is smoking a cigarette and talking to a man that Sebastian can only assume is another dom by the way he’s dressed and how casually he acts around Kurt - putting a hand on Kurt’s shoulder as they laugh at some shared joke.

Sebastian chews his bottom lip raw as he watches this man - this other dom - whisper in Kurt’s ear, wrapping an arm around his waist and holding him close. At one point, he takes the cigarette from between Kurt’s lips to smoke it, leaving a chaste kiss behind on Kurt’s cheek. Sebastian stews in his car seat, gripping the steering wheel in his hands and twisting it as if he’s preparing to rip it off its pillar.

Sebastian tells himself that he should be disgusted with himself for acting like such a jealous little bitch. He’s never had much respect for the overly possessive type, but then again, he’s never been jealous of anyone before. So, for now, if the dog collar fits, he might as well wear it. Sebastian decides to get this show going before he does something embarrassing and disgusts himself even more.

Sebastian walks up to the pair quietly, trying to tone down his usual swagger, knowing that his cockiness won’t get him as far here as it might in other bars or with other men. He tries to coax out that new side to his personality that revealed itself for the first time when he spoke to Kurt – the part that would do anything that Kurt told him to, the part that wanted to bend to Kurt’s will. He is still struggling to find it when Kurt turns his way and sees him coming.

“There’s my beautiful pet,” Kurt coos, letting go of his dom friend and putting an arm around Sebastian’s waist, “and in his sexy schoolboy uniform, no less.” Kurt reaches up and wraps Sebastian’s tie around his fingers, letting it slip through the spaces between. “Present, pretty and punctual - exactly the way I like my subs.”

Sebastian and the other man stare at each other with the same vulgar interest. The dom standing before Sebastian and Kurt is all sorts of glam fabulous - dressed in tight leather pants and wearing a sheer, barely there black shirt, with a dangerously spiked collar secured around his neck. He has a massive hole in each earlobe, filled with a black wooden plug decorated with a fine-lined lotus flower. His eyes are blue; so blue they’re almost white beneath the glowing street lights – not quite as captivating as Kurt’s blue-green eyes, but disarming nonetheless, if not all together unnerving. If Sebastian actually believed in monsters and demons, he could probably convince himself that this man is a vampire.

“Preppy, this is Elliot,” Kurt says, either unaware of the tension in the air or purposefully ignoring it. “He’s my partner in this freaky paradise.”

Sebastian offers the man his hand and the man shakes it, squeezing a little tighter than Sebastian thinks necessary, but Sebastian – having participated in one or two pissing contests before in his life – doesn’t let it show. He doesn’t squeeze back, either. The last thing he needs is for Kurt to find out that he disrespected another dom – not _just_ another dom, but his business partner. That sounds like the sort of infraction that could make Kurt dump him as a sub for good.

Elliot drops Sebastian’s hand with the glimmer of a secret smile playing at the corner of his mouth, and Sebastian suspects that he may have been subjected to some sort of test.

He wonders if he passed.

Kurt looks at Sebastian and frowns with disappointment.

“So, where’s your bag?” Kurt asks, searching Sebastian over front to back, needing no excuse to ogle Sebastian’s body but taking one anyway. “I don’t lend out clothes, preppy.”

“I’m sorry, master,” Sebastian says, this time with his head bowed and without a hint of condescension. “I didn’t know if you wanted to leave right away. I left my bag in my car.”

Kurt turns to Elliot, his eyebrows raised as if Sebastian’s behavior proved some previously debated point. Elliot rolls his eyes, appearing not to concede. Kurt shrugs and turns back to Sebastian.

“No b.d.,” Kurt says, taking a final drag of his cigarette and surrendering what is left of the butt to Elliot. “Where are you parked?”

Sebastian turns and points down the street. Kurt lets go of Sebastian’s waist and takes a step forward, squinting against the street lights to peer into the dark.

“You’re going to have to help me out here,” Kurt says. “I see a Fusion, a Charger, and a Porsche, and I know you’re not rolling in a Porsche.”

When Kurt turns back to Sebastian, Sebastian’s hands are shoved in his pockets, his eyes downcast as he smiles sheepishly at his feet.

Kurt chokes out a laugh.

“The Porsche?” Kurt asks, his voice joking and incredulous all at once. “You’re eighteen and you’re driving a Porsche?”

“Yup,” Sebastian says, his cheeks hotter than he would like. He doesn’t care how red he gets as long as Kurt keeps smiling at him with that look of awe on his face.

“Change of plans,” Kurt says, taking Sebastian’s arm and dragging him away, “we’re taking your car.”

Kurt turns back to say good-bye to Elliot and stops at his friend’s disapproving frown.

“Aw, don’t be upset, Ells,” Kurt coos over his shoulder. “You’re still my number one.”

Sebastian glances over his shoulder and watches a small smile lift the frown on Elliot’s face, but when his eyes shift to look at Sebastian, they are hard and entirely unamused.

Kurt blows Elliot a kiss and tugs Sebastian closer, moving faster toward his car.

“What do you mean by ‘number one’?” Sebastian asks, daring to slip a hand over Kurt’s where it’s curled around his bicep.

Kurt casually rests his head against Sebastian’s shoulder, and Sebastian catches his breath.

“Elliot and I have known each other forever,” Kurt explains, “and we have this deal that if we get middle-aged and fat with no prospects of love that the two of us are going to get a house together and become crazy old cat men.”

Sebastian chuckles lightly. Kurt looks up from under his eyelashes when he feels Sebastian’s shoulder shake.

“What?” Kurt draws out the word. “You don’t like cats?”

“Uh…no,” Sebastian says, caught off-guard. “I like cats just fine.”

Sebastian pulls his key fob from his pocket and unlocks the car doors.

“So…what’s so funny?” Kurt’s tone is light but more demanding now. He leans his back against the car and yanks Sebastian’s tie, pulling Sebastian’s body against his.

“I…” Sebastian doesn’t want to say the thought that crossed his mind, but he doesn’t want to lie. It’s strange that not lying is his first compulsion. He has no problem lying to anyone else, even his parents when the situation requires it.

“Tell me, preppy,” Kurt whispers, pulling the tie tighter, twisting it at the Windsor knot, choking Sebastian just enough to make him dizzy.

It doesn’t frighten Sebastian at all. He finds it mildly intoxicating. Sebastian’s eyelids flutter shut as the knot tightens again.

“I…find it hard to believe that you’ll ever have trouble finding love,” Sebastian confesses.

Kurt lets the knot go quickly, and the rush of air to Sebastian’s lungs makes him weak at the knees. He falls forward, bracing himself with his hands on the roof of his car, one on either side of Kurt’s body, caging him in.

“See?” Kurt asks. “Now, was that so difficult?”

Kurt’s voice is just as enticing, just as teasing as it always is, but there’s a break to it, as if Sebastian’s comment struck a nerve. Sebastian doesn’t want to pry. Kurt doesn’t seem like the kind of man who parts with his secrets too easily, but Sebastian wants to hear them.

He wants to earn Kurt’s trust.

“Don’t get mushy on me, preppy,” Kurt says, tutting his tongue. He puts his hands on Sebastian’s chest and pushes firmly, helping him stand. “We should get going while the night is young. Do you need me to drive?”

That snaps Sebastian from his stupor, and that snarky part of him that he hid away slips back. He sees Kurt’s eyes shining up at him, challenging him, his lips hovering so close he can taste the cloves on Kurt’s breath.

“You can flog me within an inch of my life, master,” Sebastian says, respectfully but with a sly smile, “but no one drives my baby except me.”

Kurt’s smile takes up most of his face. He reaches up and bites Sebastian’s lip sharply, hard enough that it almost bleeds, a small punishment for speaking out of turn. Sebastian swallows the pain…along with a moan.

“I like that, preppy,” Kurt whispers, running his tongue across Sebastian’s bitten lip. “I like your fiery attitude.”

“Do you?” Sebastian asks, taking his chances while he still has Kurt pressed up against his Porsche.

“I do,” Kurt admits. “It’s going to make it so much more fun dominating you.”

Kurt comes closer, so close to kissing Sebastian that Sebastian’s whole mouth waters, waiting for that sinful tongue to slip past his lips, craving its metal ornament stroking the roof of his mouth, but Kurt pulls away again, devilish grin disappearing into Sebastian’s car. Kurt had taken a step forward to open the car door, and now he is shutting it behind him.

Sebastian takes a moment to mourn the kiss he wanted so badly until he realizes – Kurt is in his car. Kurt is sitting in his car. Kurt is waiting in his car, waiting for Sebastian to drive him to his house and then…

Sebastian can’t even imagine, but he doesn’t want to wait and daydream any longer.

He scurries indignantly to the driver’s side of the car, slowing down as he approaches his door when he sees Kurt through the tinted windows throw his head back and laugh. Sebastian takes one last look at the club, the clusters of doms and subs gathered by the entrance to get in, and that unnerving pair of cold, pale eyes watching him. Sebastian nods solemnly, but Elliot rolls his head on his neck, sticking Kurt’s cigarette between his lips. He turns on his heel and makes his way back to the club.

Sebastian opens his door and slips into his seat beside Kurt, who looks blissful reclining in the leather passenger seat and breathing in deep.

“You know,” Sebastian says, putting his key in the ignition and firing the engine, “I’m not sure your friend Elliot likes me.”

“Oh, he doesn’t,” Kurt says, running his hands over the leather door panels, letting his fingers drag across the dash, “but don’t worry about him. I won’t let him hurt you.” Kurt flashes a grin Sebastian’s way. “Unless you want him to, of course.”

“Uh…no.” Sebastian puts the car into gear and pulls onto the main road. “I’m all yours.”

Somewhere between second gear and third gear, as Sebastian merges onto the highway, he swears he hears Kurt say, “Good.”

* * *

 

Kurt’s directions take Sebastian to a quiet, suburban neighborhood only a few miles away from his club. Sebastian turns down a swirling labyrinth of streets, each one identical, lined with cookie cutter houses and perfectly trimmed, green lawns – reminiscent of 1960s era Americana. Kurt points to one of the cookie cutter houses at the end of a cul de sac and Sebastian obediently pulls up front. He isn’t sure what exactly he expected when he pictured Kurt’s home, but for sure it wasn’t this.

“God almighty, I love this car,” Kurt murmurs, reaching for the door handle with a sad whimper. Sebastian puts a hand on Kurt’s arm to stop him, putting up a finger to indicate ‘one minute’. Sebastian leaps out of his side of the car, hurries over to Kurt’s, and opens the door for him.

“My, my,” Kurt says, affecting a Southern belle accent, putting a hand to his chest and fanning himself with his other, “what a gentleman.” Sebastian retreats to the trunk to retrieve his bag and the car cover, with Kurt’s laugh following him the whole way.

Kurt watches Sebastian cover the Porsche, pouting when the last inch of shiny black car is concealed completely.

“Pity,” Kurt sighs, gesturing toward the walkway with an incline of his head, “if I had a car like that, I think I’d live in it, sleep in it, fuck in it…”

Sebastian nearly misses a step at the thought of Kurt in his lap, naked, writhing, bouncing on his cock in the passenger seat of his Porsche.

He swore when he got the car that he’d never sully it by fucking anyone in it.

Now he can’t wait to get the chance.

Kurt stops at the door, key poised at the lock. He turns completely around to face Sebastian.

“When you pass through this door, preppy, you agree to my rules. You submit completely to me. Once our session starts, you don’t speak unless you’re told.”

Sebastian’s mouth goes dry – his tongue suddenly too big to make words. He nods after a pause and Kurt continues.

“I won’t ask for permission to touch you, to kiss you, to fuck you, and I’ll assume everything is green unless you say the safe word. Do you understand?”

Another nod.

Kurt looks at Sebastian carefully, examining his face – specifically his eyes – closely.

“Good,” Kurt says, happy with Sebastian’s non-answer. Apparently his eyes gave Kurt the answer he was looking for.

Kurt unlocks the door and pushes it open leading the way inside.

Sebastian has a last minute vision of what he’ll see inside - walls painted black and covered in chains, leather shackles and whips scattered everywhere, maybe even a rack of some sort, Medieval-looking and festooned with spikes. There’ll be no real furniture, maybe a few industrial pieces of art, edgy and gritty.

Again, the reality that smacks him in the face is far more devastating than anything he could possibly imagine.

Normal. Everything is normal – almost painfully so, such a contradiction when compared to the exquisite eccentricity that is Kurt. Sebastian stops and stares, spinning in a circle and taking it all in - a plain brown velour-upholstered sofa, a matching La Z Boy recliner beside it, a bland wood coffee table with a glass top, a cream colored carpet to match cream colored walls covered with framed family photos, each one painting a much different image of the man covered in tats and piercings watching Sebastian with particular interest as he quietly evaluates Kurt’s life.

“So…” Kurt says, keeping the sentence open-ended and waiting for Sebastian to fill in the blanks.

Sebastian’s expression is hysterically shocked. He raises his eyebrow in silent question.

“We haven’t started yet. Feel free to talk,” Kurt says, leaning over to unzip his boots, “but take off your shoes while you do it. I just had this carpet cleaned.”

“It’s…uh…” Sebastian drops his bag and takes a last look around, “not what I expected…exactly…”

“Even us sexual deviants have to live in houses, too, you know,” Kurt says.

“It’s not that.” Sebastian uses untying his laces as an excuse to think up a better response than ‘it’s not what I expected’. He picks up his Oxfords and places them beside Kurt’s boots by the front door, aware of Kurt’s blue eyes on him. “What I meant was…”

“Do you have a dad, preppy?” Kurt asks, pulling out a lighter and a pack of cloves from his back pocket. He opens the pack and picks a cigarette out. He puts it between his lips and lights it.

“Yeah,” Sebastian replies.

“Well, so do I.” Kurt takes a long drag from his clove and sighs as he exhales the smoke from between his lips. “He lives in Lima, not too far from here. He likes to come visit, and I like to make him comfortable, you dig? So I keep my shit in my room or in the dungeon downstairs, and I cover the kitchen table.”

Sebastian nods, but then he scrunches his nose, confused.

“Kitchen table? Why cover the kitchen table?”

Kurt smiles, beckoning for Sebastian to follow with a curled finger as he walks further into the house.

“You’ll see why.”

Kurt leads him through a pair of French double-doors into the dining room, and then through another doorway to the kitchen.

The kitchen is rustically decorated, Sebastian notices, like one might find in a cottage in the French countryside, even down to the little rooster touches on the wallpaper and the dish towels. A rooster-shaped decorative cake pan hangs on the wall over the stove, and copper pots and pans dangle from a runner on the ceiling. It reminds Sebastian of all those summers he spent at his grandmother’s estate in France.

Kurt walks up to a honey-colored, knotted wood table and smacks his hand down on the hard surface.

“This,” he says, bending over to pick up a thick rope already tied to the legs, threading it suggestively between his fingers and tugging on it to test its strength, “is where we will start our first session.”

Sebastian looks over the table and the ropes, and gulps so loudly that Kurt’s smile goes from a suggestion to a fully realized wolfish grin.

“While you’re in my house, you will be naked at all times unless I tell you otherwise. Do you understand?”

Sebastian nods, but he can’t take his eyes off the table. For a plain wood table it’s strangely imposing.

Kurt takes another inhale off his clove and rounds the table, leaning his hip on the edge and quietly calling Sebastian’s focus. It’s not too difficult. Even without speaking a word, Kurt is not a man that can easily be ignored.

“Do you like heat, preppy?” Kurt asks.

“I don’t know what you mean…”

“Put out your hand.”

Sebastian puts out his hand, not knowing what to expect, and Kurt quickly crushes out his cigarette in it. Sebastian takes a sharp breath, his eyes wide. His first instinct is to jump or swat it away, but he trusts Kurt, and bizarrely if that means letting him burn him with his cigarette than he will. To his surprise it’s not all that hot. Kurt presses it into an area of skin that’s heavily calloused from holding his lacrosse stick, so there’s no real burn. There’s a sudden flare of intense heat on his skin, but it tingles as it fades, the resulting shimmer over his skin intensely erotic.

Kurt flicks the butt into the trash. He puts his lips up to Sebastian’s cupped hand and gently blows the ash away. Then he places a small kiss to the burn and wraps Sebastian’s fingers around it.

“Yes,” Kurt purrs, “you’re a good boy.”

From that single press of Kurt’s lips to Sebastian’s hand, his entire body thirsts to have him – not that he wasn’t on the edge of needing to be inside this man’s body for the last few days, but this is that new feeling – that feeling of wanting to obey Kurt’s every command.

A feeling that only seems to surface at the sound of Kurt’s voice and the touch of his lips on Sebastian’s skin.

“Now, why don’t you be a good pet and go take a shower?” Kurt suggests, but it’s not a suggestion. It’s an undeniable command. “I want you to clean everywhere…and I _mean_ everywhere.”

Kurt takes Sebastian’s arm and steers him towards the first door down the hall.

“Everything you need is inside.” Kurt shuts the door slowly, eyes locked to Sebastian’s as he closes the gap. “And remember to leave your clothes on the hamper. You won’t be needing them tonight.”

The door clicks shut and Sebastian is alone.

 

 


	160. A Dalton Boy Looking for Trouble - Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the second half of Kurt dominating Sebastian at his house. (Just an FYI - in the installment after this one, Kurt will be telling Sebastian what he expects from him as a sub, so all of Sebastian's concerns in this chapter will be addressed in the nest chapter.) Warning for anal sex, bondage, rope bondage, fingering.

Sebastian stares at the wooden door closed shut in front of him.

Kurt wants him to shower. He ordered him to clean everywhere.

He even emphasized _everywhere_.

Still, Sebastian kind of wishes that Kurt had been more specific with his instructions. He turns around slowly in this pale gold bathroom – so simple and uncluttered, so plain, like the living room – but this room has a soothing effect unlike the others. It is more _Kurt_ than any other room he’s seen so far. The walls are sponge-painted, giving the effect of gold clouds instead of flat, boring paint. Scented candles line a wooden shelf on the wall - their charred, black wicks standing higher than the wax, melted almost completely away, each emitting the scent of jasmine. The air is thick with the sweet floral scent. Small mirrors are situated behind them to bounce the light around the room. Beneath the shelf of candles stands a covered bamboo hamper, which is where he is supposed to put his clothes. Sebastian stops at the sink, eying a line-up of products waiting for him – a brand new toothbrush, toothpaste, mouthwash, body wash, shampoo, conditioner, and a box with a suspicious looking red bulb pictured on the front.

Sebastian starts there.

He picks up the box and turns it over in his hands, reading the words printed on the side. The instructions make him do a double-take, and when he reads them over again he finally realizes what Kurt meant about cleaning _everywhere_.

Sebastian has never used an anal douche before. It’s hard to maneuver, twice he almost fumbles the red bulb into the toilet, and he gets embarrassed even though he’s in the room alone (thank God he doesn’t get so flummoxed that he has to ask for help). As long as he remains Kurt’s sub, he’s sure he’ll have to do it again…but it’s not an experience he looks forward to repeating.

Sebastian showers thoroughly, but he also tries to be quick about it. He doesn’t want to keep Kurt waiting and he’s too eager to get back to whatever he has planned. Once or twice Sebastian entertains the thought that if he’s in here scrubbing from head to toe, inside and out, what is Kurt doing? There has to be another bathroom – maybe a master bathroom. Is Kurt showering like he is? Covered in soap, sliding his hands over his wet skin, thinking of all the things he’s going to do to Sebastian?

Is he…

Sebastian stops there.

Better not to think about that, Sebastian decides.

He uses every product that Kurt left for him. He brushes his teeth, shampoos and conditions his hair, he scrubs every inch of his skin that he can reach. Even though he is meticulous with his hygiene normally, Sebastian thinks that he has probably never been so clean in his entire life.

It feels weird to shower this rigorously. It’s not the _being clean_ that feels strange exactly, but the _expectation_ of being this _level_ of clean. There’s only one reason why he would need to be _this_ clean…and he can’t wait to get to it.

He turns off the water and steps out of the shower into a room that is suspiciously absent of steam considering how hot he cranked up the water temperature. He finds a towel hanging on the back of the door, waiting for him – a towel he doesn’t remember seeing when Kurt shut him in there, which means his dom (which is how Sebastian has decided to think of Kurt, kind of as a way to put him in the mood) snuck it in there while he showered. Sebastian picks it up off the hook. It’s thick and plush, something Sebastian would probably not pick out for himself but he can appreciate it. It’s nothing like Sebastian’s taste, because Kurt is nothing like Sebastian.

All those boys at Dalton whose pants he’s gotten into, all those boys from that private school in France his parents sent him to, are very much like Sebastian – spoiled, privileged, trust fund babies, with no real responsibilities other than to act superior and mildly rebellious while knowing everyday of their lives that they would eventually go into the family business. They talk the same, live the same, smell the same, fuck the same…

Not Kurt. Kurt is nothing like those boys, and that’s why Sebastian wants him so badly.

Sebastian brings the towel to his nose and breathes in deep. It smells like Kurt and not some generic store-bought laundry detergent. It’s cloves and jasmine and vanilla and leather. It’s striking and unique, like a signature. It’s a mark, and it’s on him now. Sebastian raises an arm to his nose and takes a sniff. That smell on the towel, that smell of Kurt’s skin, that smell in the air, it’s on Sebastian, and this is another step in Sebastian’s burgeoning understanding of what it means to be a sub.

Kurt isn’t treating Sebastian like one of those lemmings that go to his club.

Sebastian belongs to Kurt.

Sebastian is Kurt’s alone.

The air dries Sebastian’s skin while he stands in the bathroom with the towel pressed to his nose.

From out in the kitchen, Sebastian hears the dull thump, thump, thump of someone hitting wood.

He smiles.

That’s his cue.

Sebastian hangs the unused towel back on its hook and rakes his fingers through his hair, slicking it back so that it’s neat since there is no comb or any other styling product available for him to use.

And no clothes.

He’s not to wear any clothes the entire time he’s there.

He looks down the length of his naked, excessively clean body and smiles.

Let the fun begin.

Sebastian opens the bathroom door and peeks down the hall into the kitchen. He’s greeted to the sight of Kurt sitting at the wood table, his bare feet propped up on the surface as he leans back in his chair, a new lit cigarette pinched between his lips, his left fist resting on the table. His hair is wet so Sebastian was right, and he swallows, imaging how thoroughly Kurt might have cleaned. He’s wearing a tight pair of dark wash denim jeans and a tight black tank top that rises up a bit at his waist, revealing a path of pale, creamy skin.

If Sebastian had his way, he would devour this man, and take his time doing it.

“Finally,” Kurt says, pulling on his cigarette and letting the smoke escape his lips while he speaks, “I was afraid you might have drowned.”

Sebastian opens his mouth for a comeback, but he remembers Kurt’s rules. He doesn’t know if this officially counts as the start of a session, but best not to take any chances.

Though the punishment might be fun.

Sebastian walks toward the kitchen, but Kurt doesn’t get up. Sebastian stops behind Kurt’s chair, waiting to be told what to do. His hands twitch as they hang at his sides, itching to rest on Kurt’s shoulders, to massage his neck, to run his fingers through wet, purple-tinted chestnut hair.

“No, no, preppy,” Kurt says, taking another drag and blowing the smoke through pursed lips, “I need you in front of me so I can get a good look at you.”

Sebastian swallows involuntarily, but if Kurt wants to look, Sebastian will let him look. He has nothing to be ashamed of.

He should tell that to the butterflies duking it out in his stomach because they don’t seem to have gotten the memo.

Sebastian steps in front of Kurt, preparing for an inspection, but Kurt doesn’t look at him right away. He sucks on what’s left of his clove, then leans his head back with his eyes closed and blows a breath of smoke into the air. Sebastian can see his face, his neck, and his shoulders better at this angle. Kurt’s face is clean of all his makeup except for a thin line of black beneath his eyes. It’s not over the top the way he usually wears it. In fact, it’s sensual and appealing, a simple decoration to emphasize a masterpiece. Sebastian has never really liked the new trend of ‘guy-liner’ but Kurt wears it well, especially in small amounts like this.

Freckles sprinkle across the bridge of his nose and onto his cheeks, a detail usually hidden by the foundation he wears. All his piercings are still in place, though with smaller, more subtle rings filling in the holes. The flock of blackbirds tattooed on his neck, disappearing down into his shirt, are more vibrant against his skin in this light. Correction – the flock of birds fly up onto his neck from somewhere beneath his shirt, their origin a secret…for now. But Sebastian can see new tattoos he hadn’t noticed before – a treble clef and a bass clef intertwined on his neck below his right ear, a star on his left exposed shoulder, a pair of intricately designed Victorian-style sewing shears on his right forearm that had been covered by his bracer before.

Kurt crushes out the butt of his cigarette in an ashtray on the table. When Sebastian’s eyes travel back to meet Kurt’s, he looks casually amused.

“Do you like what you see?” he asks.

Sebastian takes a step back and averts his eyes, biting his lips together to keep his mouth shut.

“Awww,” Kurt coos, sitting up in his seat, “look how hard preppy is trying to be obedient. Such a good boy.”

Sebastian wants to preen beneath Kurt’s praise, but now Kurt’s eyes are examining him, so close to his abs and his half-hard cock that Sebastian has to clamp his teeth down on his tongue so as not to become fully aroused. He remembers some of the talk he heard around the club when he sat at Kurt’s feet, how subs were scolded for becoming aroused without permission. He still doesn’t know a lot of what’s expected of him. He remembers Kurt’s rules so far, but are there more? Is there something he should inherently know? Was there a guidebook he should have read or something? It hadn’t even dawned on him to Google anything about the BDSM lifestyle while he was playing Mr. Big Shot by biding his time and acting aloof. But one thing he remembers from his time at the club (time that wasn’t spent at the receiving end of Kurt’s rose flogger) was another conversation a new sub was having with her dom.

It was a conversation about trust, about the sub trusting her dom, and their need for communication.

Sebastian knows that he trusts Kurt. Maybe it’s bred from fascination and a little from obsession, but he trusts him.

Sebastian hears the chair Kurt sits in creak as he leans over, and then he feels hands start to feel him up, starting at his ankles. Long fingers walk their way up his calves, and he feels his body shudder.

“Since you’ve agreed to submit to me, that makes your body mine,” Kurt says, speaking inches from Sebastian’s skin, “which means I get to do what I want to do…within limits.” Kurt’s hands wedge between Sebastian’s thighs and part his legs wider, traveling up into between. Sebastian looks up to the ceiling, counting the pots and pans while Kurt continues his examination, moving aside his balls and looking for…what? Sebastian hasn’t the foggiest idea, and he’s not about to ask. The prospects are humiliating to consider. Is Kurt making sure that he’s clean? What else could he be doing?

“You have limits and I have limits,” Kurt explains, “and I’ll discuss those limits with you, but for now, let’s work on getting you used to me touching you.”

Kurt stands from his chair and his touches become less clinical, though there is still the occasional pinch or pull – a tweak of Sebastian’s nipple here, a tug of his hair there. Sebastian stands still with his eyes trained to the floor and yields to it all. Fingertips glide along his muscles, smooth over his skin, weave up and through the damp strands of his hair, brushing and combing it aside and out of Sebastian’s face.

“There,” Kurt hums appreciatively, “it looks so much better without all that shit you put in it to make it stand up straight.”

Sebastian nearly balks – a cry of, “What about you?” ready to pass his lips, but he holds his tongue, even though it’s becoming more painful than ever to do so. Sebastian doesn’t realize he’s shaking with his need to speak until Kurt laughs.

“Good boy,” he mutters again, and Sebastian knows he was being baited.

Kurt walks around him. He runs a hand back up into his hair, grabs a fistful, and yanks his head back, with Sebastian fighting the urge to hiss at the sting. Kurt rakes his nails down Sebastian’s back until he reaches his hips. Here he pauses. He puts one hand on each hip and squeezes hard.

“I need to have you bent over,” Kurt says, putting his hands to Sebastian’s shoulders and pushing him forward. Sebastian puts his arms out and braces himself against the wood table, bending over at the waist.

“Nope.” Kurt takes a moment to move his ashtray to the kitchen counter, then returns to his sub. “I mean all the way, preppy.” He puts a hand between Sebastian’s shoulder blades and pushes down, Sebastian leaning forward until his top half lies on the surface, his head resting cheek down on the wood.

“Now, here comes the tricky part,” Kurt says, rounding to the leg closest to Sebastian’s right arm. “I’m going to tie you up. I’m going to tie your hands behind your back, and your legs to my chairs. Is there anything you need to tell me before we begin?”

Sebastian takes a deep breath, thinking about objecting, but then he shakes his head.

This is what he wants. This is why he’s here. This is how he gets to have Kurt.

This is what he’s willing to do.

Kurt works quickly, wrapping the rope on the right side of the table to Sebastian’s left wrist behind his back, and then moving to the rope on the left side and tying it around his right wrist. Then he ties the ends together. He tugs on the ropes sharply, tightening them around Sebastian’s wrists. This time Sebastian does hiss, but Kurt lets it slide.

Kurt circles back around the table to Sebastian’s legs, out of Sebastian’s line of sight. Sebastian hears the chairs scrape across the floor, feels hands lift his legs one at a time, tying him down from ankle to knee to the back of the chair with his foot flat on the seat. In this way his legs are spread wide with his cock dangling over the edge.

There are no reflective surfaces nearby. He can’t see a single piece of himself without craning his head backward like a corkscrew. It’s not uncomfortable so much as it’s…awkward, and just like that night at the club, he feels exposed, vulnerable. It’s not something he’s used to.

Kurt runs a hand down Sebastian’s back, fingers tracing along the path of his spine, running through the crack of his ass, and back up to his neck. “You remember the safe word right? Nod if you do.”

Sebastian nods as best he can, trying to get a glimpse of Kurt, needing to see the expression on his dom’s face. Sebastian imagines that he looks pretty ridiculous spread open and tied down. Is this a joke? Is Kurt standing behind him, laughing at him? His fingers fidget uneasily and he tries to readjust his legs.

“You’re uncomfortable like this, aren’t you?” Kurt says, his voice calm without a hint of teasing. Kurt continues to touch him, massaging his thighs, his hips, his ass, making his whole body ache with need despite his self-consciousness. Sebastian doesn’t know if Kurt’s question is direct or rhetorical, so he nods again.

“You probably won’t believe me when I tell you this, but you look exquisite like this, preppy.”

Sebastian doesn’t know how to read the tone in Kurt’s voice but that doesn’t stop him from blushing. He turns his head and rests his forehead on the wood, staring down into the knots and the grains, following the random pattern that dips and spirals in front of his eyes, needing to distract himself to keep the blush from spreading.

“Let me ask you this,” Kurt says, stepping up between Sebastian’s legs, continuing to touch, to feel, to massage, “You probably do something hoity-toity at that fancy school of yours like play polo, or croquet?”

Sebastian nods, his entire body quivering when Kurt’s fingers touch his skin again, this time focusing on his ass, tracing patterns over his sensitive inner thighs, rubbing firmly on the skin beneath his balls. Sebastian shuts his eyes tight, struggling with his body’s natural response to writhe with the pleasure of Kurt’s touch.

“What do you do, preppy?” Kurt asks in a commanding voice. “Tell me.”

“I…mmm…I play lacrosse…m-master,” Sebastian manages without tripping up too badly.

“Lacrosse,” Kurt repeats, sounding genuinely impressed. “Lacrosse is a difficult game. Lots of running. Lots of…endurance.”

Kurt brings a hand down hard on Sebastian’s ass, sending ripples over his skin, and every muscle in his body quakes.

Kurt’s hands disappear and Sebastian desperately wants to know what he’s doing. It’s almost torture not to be able to see, but he doesn’t try to look back over his shoulder again. _Trust_. He has to remember trust. He trusts Kurt.

But God is he curious as hell.

He hears Kurt move, rustling with something that sounds like fabric, and then a triumphant, “Aha!”

The snap of a flip-top bottle makes Sebastian’s fidgeting stop. Sebastian would bet anything the bottle in Kurt’s hands is lube. When Kurt’s hands return to his body, slick and smooth from the lube, it’s not where he expects.

“Do you know what I see when I look at you like this?” Kurt asks, using both hands to massage Sebastian’s shoulders, kneading the tension from his muscles, helping him relax piece by piece as he works his way down Sebastian’s back. “I see your strong muscles, all the hard work you put into your body, and it’s such a tremendous turn on.”

Kurt rounds the table so that he can face Sebastian, so that Sebastian can catch a glimpse of the bulge growing in Kurt’s skin-tight jeans.

“Do you see that, preppy?” Kurt asks, his voice a delicious whisper in Sebastian’s ears. Sebastian would nod in response, but he’s too stunned by the beauty that is Kurt’s growing erection inches from his face. Kurt grabs a fistful of Sebastian’s hair and steps closer, grinding his cock against Sebastian’s cheek. “Do you feel that?” Kurt’s voice cracks a little, just enough to send sparks surging all throughout Sebastian’s body. “That’s you, preppy. You and your gorgeous body tied to my table do that to me.”

Sebastian takes a deep breath, seeking out the scent of this body crushed so close to his skin, discovering hints of cloves and denim and sweet vanilla. Kurt ruts against Sebastian’s face, so close to his mouth that Sebastian places open-mouth kisses to his hip in an effort to seek out that elusive prize beckoning him to put his mouth around it.

“Do you want that?” Kurt teases, bringing his cock closer, watching Sebastian strain to reach it, whimpering when his teeth barely scrape Kurt’s jeans. “I want you to have it, preppy. I do, but not like this…not yet.”

Kurt releases his grip on Sebastian’s hair and walks away. Sebastian cools his temper, but knowing that Kurt is hard because of him is maddening. He tugs at the ropes around his wrist one last time, but it’s a fruitless effort. The more he wrestles with the ropes, the tighter they become until he can feel them cut into his skin, but the pain is no longer a deterrent. He wants to get closer to his goal.

He hears Kurt’s muffled footsteps stop behind him once again, and Kurt chuckles, dark and thick, low in his throat, a rumble of his own need and carefully caged lust – better caged than Sebastian, who is riled up and ready to rip the wood table in two.

“I think that my little boy is ready to be milked,” Kurt says, “but I can’t get started until he’s very, very quiet and very, very still.”

It takes a moment for Sebastian to register that Kurt is talking about him, but once he does, he lies still and holds his breath to keep from making a sound.

But, milking?

“That’s a good boy…”

Sebastian hears another flick of the unseen bottle, hears a squish as Kurt squeezes the thin liquid into his hands. Sebastian’s body tenses, waiting for whatever is going to happen to happen already.

Kurt wraps his long, strong fingers around Sebastian’s hard cock and starts to move his hand slowly. With his other hand, he fondles his balls, twisting slowly.

Sebastian’s whole body is at war. It wants to move, to squirm, to arch with pleasure, but he can’t. He’s forbidden. He lets that command ground him and tries not to move while inside he’s screaming to explode.

His cock twitches in Kurt’s hand and Kurt tuts.

“Nope,” Kurt says, moving his slick hand slower, “no cumming till I say so, preppy. I need you to focus on staying quiet and keeping still.”

Kurt should have asked him to stop breathing and blinking – it would have been a less impossible task to accomplish.

When Kurt first mentioned milking Sebastian, Sebastian had absolutely no idea what Kurt could have meant, and the pictures it evoked were both ridiculous and anatomically impossible. Had Sebastian only known about this, he would have been begging for it from the first moment he ever let another boy lay a hand on him.

Kurt knows just how to touch him, how much pressure, just where to twist. Unable to move, Sebastian feels himself dissolve into the tabletop. Kurt edges him closer and closer until, without meaning to, he moans.

“Oh, God…”

The second the words slip past Sebastian’s lips, he freezes. Kurt stops what he’s doing and pulls away from the table

“I feel like ice-cream, preppy. Would you like some?”

Sebastian leans his forehead onto the tabletop, hiding his face and panting against the wood. He’s so close, so close to cumming, so close that anything will push him to the brink.

Kurt comes back with a pint of ice-cream and a spoon.

“You don’t have any nut allergies, do you?” Kurt asks, casually pulling up a chair and taking the top off the ice-cream. “Because Pecan Praline Salted Caramel is my fave, so it’s the only flavor I have in the house.”

Kurt looks at Sebastian and waits patiently for his sub to turn his head and look at him, pupils blown wide, lips swollen from being bitten.

Kurt raises an eyebrow.

“Nuts?” he says. “You allergic?”

Sebastian looks aghast by the question, but he shakes his head.

“Perfect!” Kurt rakes his spoon across the top of the ice-cream, “because this stuff is way too good not to share.”

Sebastian watches Kurt take the first spoonful for himself, slipping it past his lips and sucking it off the spoon.

“Mmm,” he hums, closing his eyes as he pulls the spoon out, licked completely clean. “That’s sooo good.”

Kurt spoons up some more, but this time he offers it to Sebastian. Sebastian parts his lips slowly, brow furrowed, puzzled by Kurt’s complete change in demeanor. Kurt feeds him the ice-cream, waiting with the spoon in Sebastian’s mouth until he’s satisfied that Sebastian must have eaten it all, and then pulls the spoon away.

The flavor of the ice-cream doesn’t completely hit Sebastian right away, but when it does he realizes that Kurt was absolutely correct.

This is possibly the greatest ice-cream in existence.

His temporary state of need and aching desire forgotten for the moment, he moans softly around the mouthful melting on his tongue.

“I know, right?” Kurt asks, spooning up another bite for himself.

Kurt feeds Sebastian, back and forth, spoonful after spoonful, with no other conversation passing between them except the occasional mumble of appreciation. The pint of ice-cream is nearly gone when Kurt’s wicked grin finally returns.

“There, there,” Kurt says, putting the lid back on the container. “I think that’s enough of a break for now, don’t you? I wouldn’t want you to get sick.”

Kurt stands and puts the ice-cream back in the freezer. Sebastian can hear him pad across the floor, and when he opens and closes the freezer door. Kurt stays out of his sight and is back behind Sebastian before he realizes it.

“Now we get to start at the beginning,” Kurt says, opening the bottle of lube and squirting more in his hands. “And maybe my little pet has learned to stay still and keep his mouth shut?”

It’s a question, but Sebastian doesn’t dare answer it. His erection has deflated a bit, but the second Kurt’s hands, carrying the chill of the ice-cream, wrap back around his cock, his hard-on returns with a vengeance. Sebastian grits his teeth, grinding them together in his effort not to move.

“That’s better,” Kurt coos, his hand moving slowly, his other hand fondling, both moving alternately. “I like having you here to play with. I like how hard you’re trying to stay still. I need to find a way to reward you for all of your obedience.”

Sebastian is sure that means Kurt will let him cum. He’s positive of it. How much longer can he possibly go? He’s never done anything like this before, never been teased so mercilessly, and as much as he wants it to continue, he’s not sure that he can last as long as Kurt thinks he will.

Kurt’s hands disappear.

He hears the sound of more lube being squeezed from the bottle.

Sebastian, lying bound to the table, has become a single, coiled spring ready to explode and shoot across the room at the slightest touch.

Kurt’s slick hands return, roughly kneading the skin of Sebastian’s ass. A single finger runs up and down along his crack, brushing over his entrance, and Sebastian’s wrists twist, tightening the ropes.

“You have such a beautiful hole,” Kurt comments. “I bet you are so tight, aren’t you?”

His hand ghosts over Sebastian’s cock - close enough so that he can feel Kurt’s heat, but not the friction from his skin.

“God, you’re so close,” Kurt says, moaning as if he can feel Sebastian from the inside, the heat curling in his stomach, the tension in his legs. “I could just touch you until you came.”

Kurt grabs Sebastian’s hips and pulls him flush against his hard cock straining in his jeans.

“I want this,” Kurt growls, bringing his hand down on Sebastian’s ass, leaving a bright red handprint. Sebastian fights to keep still and not pull on the ropes that bind him to the table, “so I’m going to take it…”

Sebastian hears the sound of Kurt unzipping his pants, quickly, impatiently, and every inch of his exposed skin flushes with pure heat.

"I’m going to take it," Kurt continues, sucking a finger into his mouth and then brushing it over Sebastian’s entrance, "and you’re going to let me.”

Sebastian sucks in a breath.

Sebastian fucked, he didn’t get fucked. He let a boy do that to him once - a boy he was stupid enough to believe he was in love with. Sebastian swore from the day he caught that boy cheating on him with a girl that he would never fall into that trap again.

But all that aside, he has never wanted a cock in his ass so much in his life.

Then there’s the thought of being entered that suddenly strikes him like a hammer to the brain. Sebastian knows himself. He knows how he behaves when he enters a new ass…and he’s not always gentle about it. Kurt’s a dom. His world is different. Power, control – these words have different meanings and some of those definitions go hand-in-hand with pain. Sebastian visualizes Kurt slamming into him while he tries to hold back his screams, and a cold wave of panic takes hold.

Sebastian’s body trembles while Kurt’s finger circles his entrance.

“You’re shaking,” Kurt says. “My beautiful alpha male isn’t nervous, is he?”

The safe word hangs off the tip of Sebastian’s tongue – _butterfly_. All he has to do is give it voice and let it take flight. He can hear himself saying it over and over in his head - _Butterfly! Butterfly!_

Kurt’s hand - the hand not teasing Sebastian - starts massaging the small of Sebastian’s back.

“Shhh,” Kurt says, “I promise, preppy, I’m not going to hurt you. I’ll take it really easy.”

His finger slips inside, breaching past the tight ring of muscle that’s been tensing with the thought of Kurt fucking him, and Sebastian sees stars.

Not bad stars. Not the kind of stars that accompany tremendous agony.

These stars are bright and shimmer with every pass of Kurt’s finger. Kurt moves in and out of his body slowly and Sebastian melts.

“That’s my boy,” Kurt hums, deftly slipping in another finger. It stings slightly, no more than the burn on his hand from the clove cigarette. Sebastian finds himself chasing Kurt’s fingers, pushing back to follow them as they leave his body. “You’re so anxious. You want me to fill you up, don’t you?”

Sebastian doesn’t answer, doesn’t whimper, and Kurt continues, speaking into the silence.

“I know you do, ever since I had you bent over the pew at my club. I could tell you wanted me, and I don’t mind admitting I wanted you, too. Your gorgeous ass glowing red from being spanked…”

Kurt’s voice wavers, his fingers quickening their pace in and out, in and out, in and out.

Then the fingers disappear and there’s more rustling – then a tear.

Sebastian has opened plenty of condom wrappers. He knows the telltale sound of one being torn open.

Something blunt and large pushes against his ass, and he bites his lip.

_Butterfly, butterfly, butterfly, butterfly…_

The urge to say it dims with every touch of Kurt’s cock and his fingers, with the way he works his hole open slowly, how he gently pushes in, an inch at a time, pulling back out and then sliding back in. There’s no need to rush, no power play.

Kurt’s not going to hurt him.

Kurt already seems to know how to read the signals of Sebastian’s body, stopping when Sebastian’s legs tense up, when his back arches or his wrists pull tight on the ropes. He shushes and massages, murmurs lightly, “Good boy…good boy…” until he enters Sebastian completely, and stops to admire the view of their skin flush together, of his cock deep in Sebastian’s ass, of the beautiful boy tied to his table, the one he’s dying to give pleasure to.

“There, preppy,” he mumbles with a sigh, “how does that feel?”

Speechless, Sebastian tries to come up with something, anything, that sounds even mildly intelligent, but he’s not sure there’s enough blood in his brain available to make that happen. He’ll settle for something remotely coherent, but he can’t seem to come up with that either.

“It’s alright,” Kurt says, starting with small, controlled thrusts, “we have all night. Take your time.”

Sebastian realizes that Kurt is willing to do this until Sebastian comes up with an answer, which would be fine, but it’s not enough. It’s nowhere near enough. He wants more. He decides to open his mouth and say the first thing that enters his mind.

“I…oh, God…I…”

He fails incredibly.

Kurt laughs, pulling out further and then pushing back in harder.

“Try again,” he says.

“Uh…I…fuck…”

Kurt continues with the shallow movements and God, they feel so good, so intense and relaxing at the same time - why can’t Sebastian just say it? Every slight snap of Kurt’s hips siphons away all of Sebastian’s rational thinking until every word he knows is stolen from his lips, rendering his expensive education utterly useless.

“Why don’t we start out small,” Kurt says, pulling out almost to his limit and pushing back in with one, long, smooth movement, “does this feel good, preppy?”

A question. An easy question. This he can answer.

“Yes, master,” Sebastian moans and Kurt chuckles again.

“Do you want me to continue?” Kurt says, pushing harder and this time, finding something hidden, something new that makes Sebastian’s mind reel with a rush of sensations he’s never experienced before. It makes his skin tingle and his cock ache. It makes him restless and eager to move.

“Yes, master,” he whimpers, rolling his wrists in their ropes, his legs shaking so hard the chairs rattle against the floor.

“Did you like that?” Kurt says quietly, and Sebastian can tell Kurt is fighting to hold himself together, maybe as much as Sebastian is. He pulls out and pushes back in, hitting that same spot again, making Sebastian’s toes curl.

“Yes, master,” Sebastian whimpers louder this time.

“Should I keep doing that?” Kurt doesn’t wait for an answer. He assaults that same spot over and over, and this time Sebastian can’t help struggling against the ropes, unable to stay still any longer.

“Yes, master,” Sebastian mumbles, trying to push back against Kurt’s hips, but he has pulled the ropes to their farthest point.

“Sebastian…” Kurt murmurs through trembling lips, “oh, Sebastian…talk to me, Sebastian… _please_ …”

“Y-yes…master…”

The sound of Kurt moaning is one thing, the sound of him saying _please_ is another, but Sebastian’s name on Kurt’s lips is his unexpected weakness. It takes him from barely holding on to a state of extreme urgency. He’s going to cum. He has to. His body can’t contain itself, no matter what he wants or what Kurt commands. He’s fighting a losing battle, and Kurt’s next words make it insurmountably worse.

“Kurt,” his dom chokes out. “Call me Kurt.”

“K-Kurt…” Sebastian is almost reluctant to say it. It doesn’t seem right, but it’s what Kurt wants and the reaction is immediate.

Kurt pounds into Sebastian faster at the sound of his name.

“Kurt!” Sebastian whines, feeling heat warp through his body over and over again. “Oh, God, Kurt!”

“Do you want to cum, preppy?” Kurt asks. It’s a question, not a taunt. Kurt’s not looking to prolong Sebastian’s agony any longer. He’s looking to relieve his own.

“Yes, Kurt,” Sebastian says, hoping he’s still allowed, for a little while longer, to call him that. “Please, Kurt.”

Kurt’s fingers wrap around Sebastian’s cock again and he knows he’s done. As much as he tries, he has no control. He’s reached that point where his body doesn’t give a flying fuck what he wants, it’s just going to do. He cums hard, even as he strains to bide his orgasm. There’s nothing in the world that can stop it now.

“Good boy,” Kurt mutters over and over, “good boy…good boy…”

Kurt pulls in close, driving himself deep into Sebastian’s body, his hips flush against Sebastian’s ass, letting his convulsing body drive itself into him over and over, relinquishing control. Kurt grunts and groans - Sebastian feels the vibrations travel from Kurt’s body to his. Sebastian shakes, his teeth chattering, and he feels weak.

He’s not sure if he’ll be able to make his legs work after this.

“Oh, Sebastian,” Kurt moans as he drops down over Sebastian’s back. “Dear Lord, your body is so tight…so amazing.”

Sebastian smiles but doesn’t say a word. It’s not in him to be cocky at this moment, bathing in Kurt’s afterglow, when normally he would say something obnoxious.

Sebastian doesn’t want to kill the mood.

“Well,” Kurt laughs against Sebastian’s shoulder, “do you think you can walk, preppy, or should we sleep here all night?”

“I…I don’t…” Sebastian exhales quickly, finding it as hard, if not harder, to put together a coherent sentence with Kurt pressed against him as it was with Kurt pounding into him.

“That was a rhetorical question,” Kurt says, placing a kiss to Sebastian’s shoulder blade and pushing off his body. “I’m pretty sure you can’t walk. Let’s get you cleaned up and ready for bed.”

Sebastian hears Kurt take off the condom and toss it away, and when he returns he carefully unties the ropes – his wrists first, one at a time, rubbing down Sebastian’s arms to get the blood flowing again. His legs receive a similar treatment - each one unwrapped and massaged, then placed flat on the floor so Sebastian can find his balance. Sebastian tries to stand but Kurt puts a hand to his shoulder – not pushing him down, but still keeping him in place.

“Stay here a moment. Let the blood circulate. I’ll be right back.”

Kurt shuffles off and this time Sebastian turns his head and watches Kurt make his way to the bathroom. At some point he must have taken off his shirt and kicked off his jeans because he saunters down the hallway gloriously naked, and again Sebastian becomes speechless. Kurt looks so comfortable in his skin, and he has every right to. This dom is trim and muscular, obviously investing quite a bit of time and effort into keeping himself fit.

Now Sebastian can see where the flock of blackbirds comes from. They originate from a massive tree tattoo. Its roots extend across his hips and the trunk grows almost completely up the length of Kurt’s spine, with the blackbirds flying up from the branches in a mass exodus. On the back of Kurt’s neck, right at the nape, is a symbol that Sebastian can’t see clear enough to identify. Apart from those, there are rose vines growing down the backs of both his legs, so well-drawn that they almost look real - from the soft, curling petals and twining stems, to the sharp thorns.

Insanely long and sharp looking thorns.

Another piece of the puzzle that is Kurt.

Sebastian turns his head when he hears Kurt return, not sure if his dom would appreciate him staring. He feels warm water trickle over his skin and a wet wash cloth wiping him down.

“There you are,” Kurt says, following up with a dry wash cloth afterward. “Now I don’t think you’ll stain my satin sheets.”

Kurt helps Sebastian stand, tugging him up by his arms, draping one of Sebastian’s arms across his shoulders. Kurt helps Sebastian limp along. Sebastian keeps his head bowed, not that he has much of a choice. His neck seems done with the idea of supporting his head.

“Do you need to use the bathroom?” Kurt asks as they approach the first door.

Sebastian shakes his head and they trundle past together.

There’s another door to their left and two on their right, but Kurt leads Sebastian to the last door at the far end of the hallway. He turns the knob and pushes it open, leading Sebastian inside.

Sebastian’s eyes lift enough to see into the dimly lit room.

This is definitely more like what Sebastian originally had in mind.

This room seems to be right out of Kurt’s club – dark wood floors, dark wood furniture, violet painted walls, heavy velvet black-out curtains covering the windows, abstract framed art hanging on the walls, and a multitude of whips/cuffs/toys laid out on every conceivable surface. In the center of the room sits a large, four-poster bed with violet sheets and a matching comforter painstakingly embroidered with beads in an intricate Celtic pattern.

Kurt pulls the comforter back and sits Sebastian on the bed, helping him swing his still quaking legs up onto the mattress. He turns to a dresser beside the bed and opens the top drawer, rummaging through the contents and pulling out a small bottle – a gold bottle with the word _Dior_ written across the side. He shows the bottle to Sebastian.

“This will help those burn marks on your wrists,” Kurt explains, reaching out and taking Sebastian’s left hand first. Sebastian watches Kurt tend to his wounds, his touch soft and soothing, such a stark contrast to the man who fucked him on his kitchen table moments before, a man covered in thorns but also roses and musical symbols and blackbirds trying to break free. Kurt treats both wrists and puts the bottle back in its hiding place. He pulls out what looks like a silk scarf and starts wrapping it around Sebastian’s wrists, tying the two together.

Sebastian raises an eyebrow and Kurt laughs.

“I have a rule,” Kurt says simply, “no one unbound in my bed.”

When Sebastian seamlessly raises the other eyebrow, Kurt laughs louder.

“And believe it or not, covering the burns will help them heal faster with that lotion on them.”

Sebastian is too tired to argue. He’s too tired to shake his head. He’s too tired to do much of anything but watch Kurt. There are other tattoos on his chest but Sebastian doesn’t take the time to admire them. He’s too focused on Kurt’s face as Kurt turns his eyes to Sebastian lying in his bed. Kurt’s blue eyes travel up Sebastian’s body, taking his time, studying him, memorizing him, trying to decide if he likes him this way. Kurt’s brow furrows. His eyes become distant, as if he’s replaying a scene in his head. One moment he looks vaguely angry, and another moment his lips curl at the corner.

He sits up, apparently content with his decision.

“Most of my personal subs, when I have one, sleep on the floor by the bed when they’ve been good little doggies…” He puts a hand to Sebastian’s cheek and trails it down his face, tracing a path over muscles and skin, skimming over his neck and down his chest, stopping above his heart, “but I kind of like you the way you are.”

Kurt covers him with the sheet on his bed, tucking him in carefully, taking more time than the task needs. Then he lies down beside Sebastian and rests his head on his chest, humming quietly as he drifts almost immediately off to sleep.

There Sebastian lays, exhausted, sated, in this surreal place with this enigma of a man sleeping beside him. Sleeping with his wrists bound might be uncomfortable, but it’s worth it to stay on the bed with Kurt’s head on his chest, curled up asleep and purring like a contented cat.

 

 


	161. A Dalton Boy with a Necktie Fetish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was written for tumblr user therewasagirlwhowantedtofly prompted a one-shot with breathplay. I felt that it fit well in my Dalton Boy series. So, this puts the story a little out of order, but I hope you guys enjoy it. Warning for bondage, breathplay, age gap, sort of underage drinking, anal sex, and destruction of a Dalton uniform.

Sebastian watches Kurt wrap his lips around the mouth of the bottle in his grasp, the glowing green liquid flowing into his mouth. A tiny river of it escapes the seal of his lips around the bottle and runs down the side of his mouth, curling around his chin and dripping down his neck.

Sebastian runs his tongue over his own dry lips, longing to lick it up.

Kurt removes the bottle from his mouth and sighs, wiping up the liquid with the back of his hand.

Sebastian sees his opportunity disappear and deflates into the seat beneath him.

“I…I can’t believe you’re torturing me like this,” Sebastian says, his voice shaking when Kurt fixes him with both shining blue eyes. He responds to Sebastian’s complaints by pouring a stream of the cool liquid down Sebastian’s bare chest and slowly licking it up with the tip of his tongue.

Fifteen minutes after they had arrived at Kurt’s club, done the rounds with the other doms and said hello to Elliot, Kurt had locked them in his office, forced Sebastian into a high-backed Victorian style wing chair by his desk, and cuffed his wrists behind his back. Kurt tore Sebastian’s uniform shirt open, popping every last button, pulling it wide open to leave his chest bare. (This shirt was Kurt’s fifth victim this month, so Sebastian had taken the liberty of ordering three dozen more. Far be it for Sebastian to say no to his dom, even if it meant destroying every last uniform he had in his closet.) Kurt left Sebastian’s necktie on, turning it around on his neck so that the tail of it draped over Sebastian’s shoulder.

Even though they are in Kurt’s club, this isn’t the same as their other _sessions_. This is for the two of them, but on a different level. For as strict a dom as Kurt usually is, right now he is being uncharacteristically lenient.

It’s almost like their version of a _normal_ date with the clear understanding that Kurt is entirely in charge.

Kurt had stripped off his shirt for Sebastian, letting his sub watch with hungry eyes as he exposed his toned chest and all of his glorious tattoos. He perched onto Sebastian’s lap, opened the bottle of absinthe, and proceeded to drink down every last drop.

“Can’t I have just a sip?” Sebastian begs in a very un- _Sebastian Smythe_ manner.

“You know the rules about minors drinking in my club,” Kurt says, raising the bottle back to his lips with a wicked grin. “Can’t do it.” Kurt chuckles darkly. “It’s a shame, too, because Elliot only buys the good stuff.” Kurt takes a long drag off the bottle with Sebastian staring at the long line of his neck as he drinks, watching his throat work the liquid down his throat. “I think it’s banned in fourteen countries.” Kurt takes another long swig. He leans back too far and teeters on Sebastian’s lap, giggling when he pulls himself up.

“Wow,” he says, rolling his head on his neck. “I think I’m just about flying.”

“Well, I wish I was flying with you,” Sebastian says. He watches his dom drink, his green eyes swelling with jealousy. Kurt cares little for Sebastian’s jealousy. It’s Sebastian’s need that he craves, and his need is always there when he trains those sinful green eyes on Kurt’s face and body.

For a boy who never thought he would willingly belong to anyone, Sebastian sure does like being owned.

Sebastian’s need for Kurt is raw and exciting and it feeds Kurt’s ego to no end.

Kurt chews on this thought as he looks at his sub beneath him, eager to play with this gorgeous boy.

“I can think of a way to get you flying,” Kurt says, leaning over and setting the bottle down on the floor. He scoots off of Sebastian’s lap and stands before him. He starts pulling off his boots, taking his time to strip for his bound sub. “Do you trust me, preppy?”

“Yes,” Sebastian says without a second’s hesitation. His answer makes the grin on Kurt’s face grow wide. “More than I should, probably.”

Kurt laughs, unzipping his jeans and peeling them down his legs.

Kurt doesn’t seem to mind stripping naked anywhere – not that he had any reason to be self-conscious. Kurt has an incredible body and he knows it. He knows Sebastian likes to look at him. It’s especially delicious to feel Sebastian’s eyes on his skin when Sebastian is tied up - when Sebastian can’t quench his desire for the touch of his fingertips sliding over Kurt’s smooth skin, tracing Kurt’s tattoos one at a time, toying with his nipples or threading through the violet locks in his hair.

Sebastian wants Kurt – every second they’re together and pretty much every minute that they’re apart. He wants Kurt’s body. He needs Kurt’s dominance. He doesn’t know why, and if he thinks about it too hard sometimes it infuriates him.

So Sebastian doesn’t think about it at all.

He simply submits whenever Kurt lays eyes on him.

Kurt is more than ready for him, his cock incredibly hard and flushed, aching where it stands between Kurt’s muscular legs.

“Now this is what we’re going to do, preppy,” Kurt says, bending over his sub and working at the zipper and button to Sebastian’s uniform pants. “I’m going to sit in your lap and have my way with you, and we’re going to have a little fun with that kinky necktie of yours.”

Sebastian’s eyebrows shoot straight up as Kurt frees his cock from his pants, not moving him an inch to pull his slacks down because (as Kurt has said many times before) Sebastian’s cock is the only part he needs.

“You know, all you prep school boys are bred to be subs,” Kurt continues without any other explanation, “with these uptight uniforms and your stringent school schedules, all of you jumping like obedient little dogs at the sound of a bell…”

Kurt climbs nimbly into Sebastian’s lap, reaching behind his sub to his desk for a condom and a bottle of lube.

“I like my doggy,” Kurt says with a giddy laugh, freeing the condom from its foil packet and swiftly rolling it over Sebastian’s cock. “So obedient, so ready for me…” He tosses the empty foil square into the trash and flips open the bottle. Sebastian watches Kurt squeeze a generous dollop of lube into the palm of his hand. Kurt flips the lid shut and tosses the bottle back on his desk. He warms the lube between his hands before slathering it over the length of Sebastian’s erection. Sebastian fights the urge to move his hips up to meet his dom’s hands, sure that Kurt will put a full stop to whatever he has planned if he does.

Kurt loves to introduce new ways of torturing Sebastian, and Sebastian has started to love Kurt’s surprises.

Kurt positions himself expertly above Sebastian’s cock, lowering himself daintily over Sebastian’s erection while he explains his plan, eyes glowing down at Sebastian with inebriation.

“I’m going to fuck you,” Kurt says in that no-nonsense dom tone that makes Sebastian’s toes curl – the one that leaves no room for argument, “and while I do, I’m going to cut off your air supply bit…by…bit.” Kurt curls a finger around the tail of Sebastian’s tie, pulling it back over his shoulder and straightening it over his bare chest.

Sebastian swallows hard.

“Master?” he asks, recognizing the switch from playful torment to domination in the tone of Kurt’s voice and adjusting accordingly.

“Yes, preppy?” Kurt leans in close, nibbling along the contours of Sebastian’s mouth.

“Don’t people…die from doing that?”

Kurt sits back and scowls.

“Yeah, if you’re an idiot doing it by yourself and you accidentally hang yourself in your closet with your belt or some such shit.” Suddenly, Kurt’s eyes flare with unexpected anger. “Which is why you never, ever do this alone,” Kurt says, jabbing a finger into Sebastian’s chest hard enough to make him flinch. “Not while you’re jerking off, not without me. I forbid it. Do you understand?”

Kurt’s conviction steals every word from Sebastian’s lips and he nods.

“Say it,” Kurt says, digging his nails into the skin of Sebastian’s chest to make himself understood. “Tell me that you understand. I need to hear you say it.”

“I understand, master,” Sebastian says, keeping his voice calm even with the pain of Kurt’s nails raking into his skin.

Kurt sinks his body completely over Sebastian’s cock and sighs, retracting his nails and fiddling with Sebastian’s tie again.

“Good,” Kurt says, returning to his mask of practiced control. “I’m glad you understand.” Kurt tightens the Windsor knot on Sebastian’s tie, inching it up to his neck. “We’re going to go slow,” Kurt says, sliding his tongue across Sebastian’s lips, “and I’ll ask you how you’re holding up along the way, but if you need me to stop…” He leans behind Sebastian and grabs something off his desk. He sits back up and presses a small, round device into Sebastian’s hand. It’s a smooth disk with a button that Sebastian can feel with his thumb. Sebastian looks into Kurt’s eyes and raises a questioning eyebrow.

“Give it a go,” Kurt says, motioning with his chin over Sebastian’s shoulder.

Sebastian finds the button with his thumb and gives it a tentative press. He doesn’t have to press hard to make the small disk buzz loudly in his hand. Kurt laughs at Sebastian’s jolt of surprise.

“I think that’ll get my attention,” Kurt says, returning to the kiss he had abandoned seconds before. “Don’t you?”

Sebastian nods as Kurt’s lips meet his. In this position, Sebastian can feel all of Kurt press against him – the warm skin of his chest against his own, Kurt’s ass resting on his thighs, and his cock, hard and leaking, bobbing against Sebastian’s stomach. Sebastian happily surrenders to Kurt. He can’t move his hands or his wrists, can barely move his body, but he is more than willing to acquiesce to sex for the rest of his life just this way as long as it’s with his dom – as long as it’s with Kurt.

Oh yeah, this man owns him, and Sebastian can’t find a single reason in the world to mind.

Kurt pushes the knot of Sebastian’s tie up to his Adam’s Apple, tightening the tie around his neck until Sebastian gasps. Kurt can feel Sebastian’s throat brace against the push of the knot trying to constrict his airway, but Kurt doesn’t force it.

“Relax, preppy,” Kurt whispers in Sebastian’s ear, “give in, and it’ll feel really good.”

Sebastian swallows as best he can and nods once, melting into the chair, trying to will the tension in his muscles to fade away. Kurt pushes harder. Sebastian can feel a small thread of panic rise up within him, but then Kurt’s body begins to move and any anxiety Sebastian has over the idea of being choked dissolves beneath the smooth snap of Kurt’s hips.

The knot tightens, and Sebastian feels everything change as it becomes harder to breath – the blind, dazzling euphoria of being disconnected from his body. Lights flash behind his eyes as his vision darkens and the beautiful face of his dom is replaced with a sea of floating stars.

“Okay,” Kurt says, slowing the movement of his hips and carefully releasing the knot pressed against Sebastian’s neck. Sebastian feels air start to move into his lungs again and his vision clears, his head throbbing and spinning. He whimpers as his body crashes back to earth. “Are you still with me, preppy?”

“Yes,” Sebastian replies, his voice rough.

“Do you want me to do that again?” Kurt asks with the shadow of a laugh in his voice.

“Yes, master,” Sebastian says, knowing that remembering to say _master_ will get him whatever he wants.

Kurt captures Sebastian’s lips in a kiss that’s soft as he slides their lips together and raw in the way that Kurt bites down on Sebastian’s skin. They start out as gentle nibbles, but soon Kurt bites down hard. He moves again - up and down, up and down - with no break in between for Sebastian to breathe – not that he can now that Kurt is tightening the tie again, pushing the knot further until Kurt can hear Sebastian whine, can feel his legs shake.

The euphoria returns along with the spinning, and the lights that explode like fireworks the longer Kurt forces him to hold his breathe. Sebastian feels the knot slip. He inhales a single breath, and the entire world shifts, spinning faster, tilting left and right. It feels like falling from a tremendous height with no fear of dying. He would laugh if he could.

“Okay,” Kurt says again, slowing his hips and releasing the knot, not as much as before, but enough for Sebastian to catch a small breath so he doesn’t pass out. “You still haven’t pressed the magic button,” Kurt says, sneaking his finger between Sebastian’s neck and his tie, keeping the pressure on. “Are we good to keep going? I can feel your body telling me you want to cum. Is that true, preppy? Do you want to cum?”

Sebastian’s head lolls back and forth and he giggles, the sound uncontrollable and manic as it pierces the fog of his hearing, blocked by the sound of blood rushing through his head.

Kurt laughs along with him, watching his sub wallow in his loopy haze.

“Is that a yes, preppy?” Kurt says, cupping Sebastian’s chin in his hand and trying to steal back his attention.

“Yes, master,” Sebastian says, peering up to where Kurt’s face has gone double, both images of him trying to snap back together into a single picture. “Yes, I want to cum.”

“Alright, preppy,” Kurt says with another chuckle. “Do you have your button?”

Sebastian presses the button and the sharp sound echoes in the room. Sebastian dissolves into a fit of giggles when Kurt jumps.

“Yup,” Sebastian says, popping the _p_.

Kurt shakes his head but he’s slightly desperate himself, dying to see Sebastian cum beneath him, his eyes rolled to the back of his head, gasping for air in that way that Kurt knows will make his orgasm feel incredible when it hits.

Kurt is less gentle this time, pushing the knot up to Sebastian’s neck and putting more strength behind it, moving his hips up and down faster, slamming his ass down on Sebastian’s thighs harder. Sebastian arches his back and his eyelids flutter shut, his face turning red with his effort to breathe as Kurt fucks him, but the smile on his face is undeniable.

He feels Kurt everywhere. Everywhere Kurt touches connects inside his body. His ass is hot and tight around Sebastian’s cock, and his fingertips brushing Sebastian’s neck send sparks sizzling over his skin. He feels his mind disintegrate. Every thought becomes irrational, unimportant nonsense. Words become unintelligible. His mind separates from reality. He becomes light, like mist, floating above his body, heading straight into a shimmering white ball of light and heat.

“Yes,” he can hear Kurt moan. “God, yes, preppy…that’s it.”

Sebastian is bucking his hips beneath Kurt’s body, thrusting up into that all-encompassing heat that Kurt possesses. He can’t feel himself moving. His muscles are pliant and rubbery, apparently with a mind of their own because Sebastian’s brain has stopped working. All he has left is his body and the animalistic feeling that he’s about to cum, deep inside his dom’s body, embarrassingly hard.

He might even pass out.

And that’s okay. Everything is okay right now. Everything around Sebastian is warm and fuzzy and soft. Even the heat building inside him is soft around the edges as it starts to swallow him whole.

“Oh, preppy,” Sebastian can hear Kurt mutter, the words sliding through his ears, barely reaching his brain but reverberating inside his skull. “Oh, God…”

There’s another warmth erupting over his chest. It’s hot and wet, covering his skin in stripes, even reaching underneath his chin. He feels his senses fire, random areas over his skin exploding, his entire being shooting out of his body in all directions.

Sebastian groans out loud. It’s a strained, guttural noise, but as the tension around his neck releases, the groan becomes a gasp.

“There we go, preppy,” Kurt coos, running his fingers through Sebastian’s hair as he loosens the necktie. “Breathe in slowly. Don’t force it.”

Sebastian starts to swallow, trying to gulp in air, but the slowly loosening necktie won’t let him. His body seems to know what it’s doing, and breathes in on its own, following the rhythm set by his dom as he slides the knot to the tie away from his neck.

“That’s a good boy,” Kurt says, reaching onto his desk for a box of tissues and cleaning Sebastian’s chest, except for one drop of cum that Kurt collects on his finger and slides between Sebastian’s lips.

It’s a rare occasion that Kurt will do that for Sebastian, and Sebastian savors it.

“How was that?” Kurt asks, planting bites and kisses down the side of Sebastian’s neck.

“That was…” Sebastian pants, trying to find the right words in the thick hazy soup that are his thoughts at present, “incredible.”

It’s a banal word, but it’ll do.

Sebastian grins wide as his vision clears and he can see his dom gazing down at him with a smug, satisfied look on his face.

“But, I still would have liked a sip from your bottle,” Sebastian says with a wink.

Kurt sits straight up and slaps Sebastian across the face, snapping Sebastian’s face to the side. The slap isn’t hard - just hard enough that Sebastian knows Kurt doesn’t appreciate his sense of humor. Sebastian’s eyes pop open. He bites back a smile when Kurt roughly pulls his face back to look at him. Kurt sees how hard Sebastian struggles to maintain his straight, obedient face, and as much as he wants to be angry, as much as he wants to discipline Sebastian for his comment, he laughs instead.

“You’re a cheeky asshole, preppy,” Kurt says, leaning over the chair to grab the bottle of absinthe, bringing the bottle to his lips.

“Yeah,” Sebastian agrees, “but I’m your cheeky asshole, _master_.”

It’s snarkier than Kurt likes, but in other ways so sweetly spoken that Kurt isn’t angered by the sly, sort of superior way Sebastian calls him _master_. He tips Sebastian’s head back over the back of the chair and kisses him, slowly letting the mouthful of absinthe drip past Sebastian’s lips. Sebastian swallows reflexively while his tongue goes in search of more – but not more absinthe, more _Kurt._ Sebastian moans when Kurt’s tongue slips into his mouth, tasting of flowers and anise, which mixes sensually with his natural warmth and the smell of clove cigarettes and the jasmine candles he keeps lit in his bathroom at home.

Kurt pulls away and watches Sebastian, a blissful smile on his face, licking his lips to catch the last drop, or to chase after Kurt, but so completely relaxed that he doesn’t move a single inch more.

“How did that taste?” Kurt asks.

“Really good,” Sebastian admits, drawling with the intoxication of Kurt’s kiss, “but the absinthe was only so-so.”

 


	162. The Idea of You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for Kurtbastian Week 2014 Day 1
> 
> Summary: Kurt finds someone’s personal journal in the school library and reads it. He starts to fall in love with the journal’s owner.
> 
> Rating: R (For language and mention of sexual situations)

Without a doubt the library at Dalton had to be Kurt’s favorite place in the whole antiquated building. It was quite simply a huge room constructed of honey-colored wood with towering bookcases crammed full of books, mostly classic novels with rich leather covers and gold embossed spines. It was a quiet sanctuary that looked like it could have come straight from the pages of a Jane Austen novel. The room from floor to ceiling smelled of age and virtue and wisdom. Kurt could be found there before and after school, even on his lunch break. He often got lost in those stacks for hours.

For a long time he thought the music room where they held Warbler rehearsal should be his favorite, but it was pretty much just a reminder of how the Warblers, at heart, were a group of young men who didn’t seem to appreciate his uniqueness and originality. Besides, they already had their star in the form of Blaine Anderson, their goblin king. Kurt smirked. He knew he shouldn’t think that way about his boyfriend, but sometimes he just couldn’t help himself. Blaine had told him that the students of Dalton all wore uniforms because they were a group, with no one person shining out more than anyone else…that is unless you’re Blaine, apparently.

 _Ugh_. Kurt felt so conflicted. He didn’t want to be jealous, but, there you go. He was.

Kurt tried not to think about; tried to let the tension diffuse through his fingers and into the books he ran them over. He pretty much knew the order of the books by heart without having to look at the titles.

_‘The Count of Monte Cristo…Just So Stories…A Christmas Carole…’_

Kurt smiled. He didn’t actually understand the system Dalton used to organize their books. It really made no sense.

_‘A Tale of Two Cities…’_

His fingers fell in a space right where _Crime and Punishment_ should be.

Kurt looked at the shelf where his fingertips rested on a worn leather journal he had never seen before. He looked around for the librarian, but she was nowhere to be seen. He pulled the book down slowly, expecting at any second that someone would come over and claim the misplaced book, but none of the other students around him seemed to notice. He held the book in his hands, painfully curious, dying to crack the well-worn spine, but he hesitated. It looked like a personal journal…maybe even a diary.

But if it was, why would it be stuck here on the shelf?

It looked expensive. The soft leather cover alone was probably worth a few hundred dollars. Whoever this book belonged to must be looking everywhere for it. He could just turn it in at the front desk, but there was no guarantee the book would find its owner shoved in among countless forgotten sweatshirts, sunglasses and cell phones. No, he had a duty to this gorgeous journal since he had been the one to find it.

He would just open the front cover and look for a name.

He opened the book reverently to the inside cover, and then the first page, but there was no name to be seen. He flipped through the pages of perfect, neatly written script, and sighed as his eyes swept over the fluid, expressive handwriting. Kurt always felt you could tell so much about a person by how they wrote, the way they dotted their ‘I’s and crossed their ‘t’s, whether the words lifted at the ends, or stuck down in the line they were written on.

Kurt’s own handwriting was almost calligraphic.

Blaine sort of wrote like an over-enthusiastic fifth grader.

Without meaning to, his eyes stopped on a page with a four line passage…a poem…and he read…

_“In his eyes_

_Ice and fire meet_

_And when I see them, my tongue is struck dumb_

_Every…single…time…”_

Kurt held his breath. A poem. A _love_ poem.

Another boy in this very school – another _gay_ boy – who wrote love poems.

Oh dear spaghetti monster in the sky!

Kurt flipped to another page, another poem.

_“How stupid…how childish…how truly masochistic to love someone you’ll never have…_

_At least I can love the idea of him…”_

Oh… _unrequited_ love. Even better.

Kurt closed the journal and held it to his chest protectively, feeling a little paranoid as he escaped to his special corner of the library. His chest ached with guilt at reading someone else’s private thoughts of love, especially a love that might never be fulfilled, but he needed to see this through. He needed to follow the clues and find out who this was…

…and maybe, just maybe, he could bring these two lovers together.

On and on he read, page by page, captivated. He almost heard a voice reading the words to him in his head.

_“He deserves roses, and I am no more than a thorn, and I keep pricking at him, aggravating him, filling him with hate for me…_

_…because if I can’t have his love, I’ll take his hate if that might turn his azure eyes on me…”_

Azure eyes, Kurt mulled. Azure means blue. Blue eyes. So the love of this boy’s life had blue eyes.

He smiled.

_“He sings like angels and like sirens,_

_It calls to my heart and to my blood,_

_I would woo him,_

_I would love him,_

_I would set him on fire,_

_And I would tell him so,_

_But at five o’clock I’m there staring in at the door,_

_I cannot approach him,_

_I cannot touch him,_

_All I can do is wait another day…”_

He sings…at five o’clock every day he sings… _holy shit!_

Kurt bounced on the floor where he sat, feeling a little giddy.

Every day at five o’clock!

He’s a Warbler. Whoever wrote this book is in love with a Warbler.

Kurt couldn’t remember ever seeing someone hanging around the doorway peeking in on their rehearsals…not that he ever paid much attention. Today he would. Kurt tried to remember who in the Warblers besides him had blue eyes. He bit his lip. He would need to find some stealthy way to check.

The longer he read, an unexpected side effect seemed to overwhelm him. He was falling in love; falling in love with the words in this book, and the anonymous author roaming the halls of school. He knew it was irrational. He knew it was unreasonable, especially since he had a boyfriend who, for all intents and purposes, was sweet and kind and devoted, who serenaded him with cheesy love songs and texted him meaningful song lyrics.

But those were other people’s words.

Whoever this book belonged to, these words belonged to them, came from their heart…

…and were meant for someone else.

Kurt swallowed hard and sighed.

The time for fantasies and dreams was over.

With a heavy heart he closed the book and stood from his hiding place. He would turn it in at the front desk and pray every day that the proper owner found it, and in his head he could put the fairy tale to rest.

Some very special, amazing man in this school was missing out on true love.

He emerged from the stacks and ran headlong into a frazzled looking Nick Duval.

“Hey, Nick,” Kurt said, trying to sound more carefree than he felt.

“Hey, Kurt,” Nick answered back, but then his hazel eyes fell on the book in Kurt’s arms and his entire body relaxed. “Oh thank heavens,” he sighed, pulling the leather journal from Kurt’s folded arms. Kurt felt a cryptic loss the minute the book left his arms. “I’ve been looking for this everywhere.”

“Oh, well…there it is,” Kurt said lamely. “I found it on the bookshelf. I was about to turn it in.”

“Then it’s a good thing I found you first,” Nick sighed, his relief palpable, and in a small measure it cheered Kurt up.

But suddenly there was another problem.

A couple of them actually.

Kurt was certain, positive actually, that Nick was head over heels for Jeff Sterling, but Jeff had _brown_ eyes.

So, who was the mysterious stranger Nick had been writing about?

And probably more daunting, was Kurt actually in love with Nick Duval?

No, he thought, giving himself a mental shake. Nick was one of his closest friends. He couldn’t be. That would be too weird for words.

He definitely wasn’t in love with Nick Duval, though the sudden inexplicable feeling of heartbreak settling in his chest would beg to differ.

“Well, I’ve got to get going,” Nick said, slightly perturbed by his friend’s daydream expression.

“Yeah, sure.” Kurt watched Nick retreat, wondering if he shouldn’t just confront him, if for no other reason than to ask who the blue-eyed siren was that Nick had fallen in love with.

Common sense kicked in, and Kurt decided to wait. He watched Nick walk out of the library, turning around once to wave at Kurt, still looking slightly confused.

There were too many overwhelming questions, too many riddles.

Kurt couldn’t just fall in love with someone from reading their journal. That’s impossible. Even if it _was_ possible, this is apparently Nick Duval. Nicky. Kurt refused to fall in love with Nick.

What about Blaine?

They had passed the simple handholding stage a long time ago, but they hadn’t gone much further than heated make-outs and a few awkward hand-jobs. Not much that went on between them curled Kurt’s toes anymore, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t seem to make that feeling come back.

It might if Blaine said he would _set him on fire_ …

Kurt had started walking without taking much notice, his body moving on autopilot out the heavy double doors. He heard laughter coming from the far end of the hall, and when he turned the corner his heart froze in his chest. Nick stood with his head bowed, his face a strange mask of discomfort and distress while Sebastian and Hunter cackled like the hyenas they were, and in Sebastian’s hands, open to some arbitrary page, was the leather journal. Kurt felt heat rise to his cheeks, burning through the ice that kept him rooted to the spot where he stood. He barreled down the hallway, unsure exactly of his next move, with his eyes fixed on that beautiful book, spurred on by everything it held, everything it must mean to Nick…everything it had come to mean to _him_.

He caught Sebastian off-guard and snatched the book away, holding it to his chest with his arms crossed over it. All three boys stared at him in surprise, but Sebastian’s cheeks in particular started to grow pink.

“What the fuck, princess?” Sebastian growled.

“Those are _his_ thoughts, and feelings, and words, and you don’t get to take them! You don’t get to exploit them for your cruelty! You don’t get to make fun of him for it!”

“You…you read it?” Sebastian stuttered, and the color seemed to drain from his face.

“N-not intentionally…” Kurt stammered, unsure why he was still talking about this with Sebastian when he should just turn the journal back over to Nick. “I found it in the library. I thought it was just a book…and why am I still talking about this with you?”

“Kurt,” Nick intervened, putting a hand on Kurt’s shoulder and squeezing gently, “that journal isn’t mine. It belongs to Sebastian.”

Kurt almost dropped it. His eyes shifted from face to face around him. Nick looked sympathetic. Hunter looked way too amused. Sebastian’s expression was blank.

“But I thought…no! No, it can’t! It’s not…”

Kurt looked down at the worn leather book filled with beautiful poems, random thoughts, and passionate essays on life and indecision…and love. He felt betrayed. He felt his soul break. He saw himself falling in love with the boy who wrote this book.

But Sebastian?

Why did it have to be Sebastian?

Sebastian, the meerkat-faced asshole?

Sebastian, the bane of his existence, who hovered and lurked, always with some insult, always with some evil taunt…

Sebastian, the constant thorn in his side…

Thorn…

_Oh no…oh God no…_

Kurt’s hands shook as he turned the journal over to its owner, and then without another word he shot back down the hall, his cheeks on fire, his heart in his throat, his knees so weak they barely carried him, the blood rushing in his ears so loudly he didn’t hear Sebastian call out to him, or the sound of his footsteps when he started after him down the hall.

 


	163. The Reality of You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The second part to The Idea of You, that I wrote for Kurtbastian week. In the original story, Kurt finds an anonymous journal in the library and reads it, and when he does, he starts falling in love with its owner. The second part shows you what happens right after. There will be one more part to this story.

“Kurt! Kurt wait! Kurt stop!”

Kurt couldn’t stop. He didn’t want to stop, because stopping would mean facing whatever Sebastian had to say. What could he say? He wrote the journal. He couldn’t lie it away. But there was another option, and that scared Kurt more than all the taunts and insults and jabs that Sebastian could sling.

So Kurt kept on running, but Sebastian was faster, being a touch more athletic, and he caught up to Kurt before he could escape to the senior commons.

“Leave me alone, Sebastian,” Kurt cried when he felt Sebastian’s hands curl into his blazer and drag him to a halt. “Whatever you have to say, I don’t want to hear it.”

“Well, too bad, princess,” Sebastian said, pushing Kurt up against the nearest wall inside a small recess out of sight of the main hall. “You read my journal, so now you have to let me explain.”

“Fine,” Kurt said. He shook Sebastian’s hand off his shoulder and crossed his arms over his chest. “You have five minutes. Explain.”

Sebastian sighed, looking down at his feet to avoid gazing into Kurt’s eyes because if he did, he’d tell him everything; all the feelings he kept locked inside, all the things he wasn’t ready to admit to anyone, not even himself, which was why he started the journal in the first place. Kurt’s eyes had a strange power over him. They definitely had the power to undo him completely.

He opened his mouth several times, finding different places to start, but he couldn’t do it. Not an inch of truth would come out.

“Four minutes,” Kurt counted down, and Sebastian scowled.

“God, you’re such a fucking know-it-all bitch, aren’t you?” Sebastian groused. Sebastian finally found strength enough to meet Kurt’s glare eye to eye.

“Look, I don’t know what you think you read in this book…” he started his lie, but Kurt stopped him.

“I think the boy who wrote that book is scared,” Kurt said softly. “I think that book is the story of someone overwhelmed by his feelings, who doesn’t know how to express them…”

Sebastian wanted to argue, wanted to cut Kurt down and leave no doubts that he was wrong, but he wasn’t wrong. Sebastian had been holding onto the truth for so long, he was tired of hiding from it anymore.

His lie died on his lips and he sighed, bowing his head, pressing so close to Kurt it was almost uncomfortable.

“Did you finish it?” Sebastian asked, looking down at the book in his hands.

“No,” Kurt said with a shake of his head.

Sebastian nodded. He put the book gently in Kurt’s hand, and closed his fingers around it.

“All I ask is that you don’t show it to anyone else,” Sebastian said, his voice shaking a bit. “After that, just…pitch it…or burn it. I don’t care. But I’m done talking about this.”

Sebastian turned and left without looking back. Kurt heard his heavy footsteps ring down the marble hallway until they became fainter and fainter.

Kurt looked down at the book in his hand and for the first time saw it for what it was.

Self-preservation.

***

Sebastian should have felt lighter, a weight lifted by giving up that infernal book. In essence, by giving up that journal, he also gave up his obsession with Kurt Hummel.

So why did he feel sick to his stomach?

Giving up his journal was risky. It was the most private, most personal – most real thing he owned. It was literally his heart and soul scrawled over about a hundred or more pages, but he had a feeling that Kurt, for all of his flaws (whatever they may be) would not be the kind of asshole to show it around.

Over the next week, the damned thing haunted Sebastian. He saw it just as much now that Kurt had it as he did when it was in his possession. Everywhere Kurt went, he carried the journal with him. At first, it annoyed Sebastian to no end. He wanted to just snatch it away from him and throw the fucking thing out himself, but he couldn’t, because as much as it was a reminder to him of his feelings, it also made him feel like Kurt was carrying a part of him around with him. Sebastian watched Kurt carefully. He saw how protective Kurt was of it, he watched Kurt’s face when he read it – the way his lips lifted into a tiny smile, or dipped into a frown. A few times Kurt gasped, putting his hand up over his mouth, and Sebastian wished he could peek over Kurt’s shoulder, wondering what in the world he had written that would elicit that kind of response.

Just then, Blaine came up behind him and tried to read over Kurt’s shoulder. Sebastian had an urge to get up and shove him out of the way, tell him to mind his own business, but Kurt got to it first, slamming the book shut, and when he did, Sebastian got a glimpse of something new – a gold fabric bookmark that Kurt had wedged between the pages. Sebastian felt a warm tingle all over at the idea that Kurt got a special bookmark just for his pathetic journal. If Sebastian wasn’t so totally head-over-heels (and he had to admit that he was head-over-heels at this point) it would have made him sick.

Sebastian couldn’t tell what Kurt and Blaine were talking about, but Blaine reached a hand out to try and open the journal back up, and Kurt swiftly slapped him on the back of the hand, causing Blaine to pull his hand back with a cartoonish look of hurt on his face. Sebastian chortled, and when both faces turned toward him, he bolted from his seat and rushed away.

Sebastian used to write in the journal at nights in his room, when his homework was finished and he was alone with his thoughts. But now those thoughts just kept him awake, with no outlet to rid himself of them. He originally thought of buying another journal and starting up again, but the purpose of giving away the journal was to stop writing about Kurt.

Besides, his thoughts belonged with the original book…and its new owner.

“Well, shit,” Sebastian muttered after his fifth night of insomnia. He pushed himself out of bed, ready to perform an act of unadulterated self-harm. He pulled out from his desk drawer an antiquated writing set his mother had bought him his freshman year, proving that she really didn’t know much about her only son. It was a calligraphy set complete with faux parchment paper and a whole selection of pens with fancy silver writing nubs and multi-colored inks. It even came with a wax sealer, and a die with just his initial on it.

He could have just gotten out a pen and a regular sheet of notebook paper, but he thought that maybe Kurt would like this better.

_“It’s late…_

_And the school is dark and quiet and cold…_

_And I can’t help thinking how much warmer it would be…_

_If you were with me…”_

Sebastian folded the brief letter and stuck it into a parchment envelope. Then he dug out a lighter and melted the wax, waiting patiently until enough of the wax had collected on the paper. He pressed the die into the warm wax and when he pulled it away, he was pleased to see a perfect ‘S’. He took the small letter and carried it down the quiet hall to Kurt’s room and slipped it beneath the door, with a flip-floppy feeling in his stomach – equal parts elation and nausea.

Kurt never approached Sebastian to tell him that he received the note. Regardless, Sebastian sent him a new one every night.

_“You always have to find a way to be you…_

_Stuck in this boring prison_

_of academia and tradition…_

_Today you wore a blue Lion’s Head brooch on your blazer…_

_And even though it was small and relatively indistinguishable…_

_It was just another way of saying, “Fuck you, world! I’m Kurt Hummel”_

As the days went by, Sebastian began to notice the journal growing, puffing up with the additional letters that Kurt glued onto empty pages in the back of the book, till Kurt was balancing his world history book and his calculus book on top of it to keep it from bursting open.

***

“Kurt, can we talk?”

Blaine fidgeted where he stood above his boyfriend, shifting from foot to foot. Kurt looked up at him from over his copy of _Macbeth_ and smiled, but like most of his smiles lately, this one didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Sure,” Kurt said, kicking a chair out from under the table and motioning for Blaine to sit. Blaine took the chair, and looked around, noticing the journal Kurt always carried around with him, the one he never let Blaine read, pressed beneath two of his text books.

“What’s with that journal?” Blaine asked, taking a tangent from his original subject of discussion to address Kurt’s latest obsession.

Kurt shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant. He didn’t like it when Blaine tried to get him to talk about the journal. In some ways he felt wrong carrying it around with him, with being in love with it so much…with the feelings he might be starting to have for Sebastian; feelings he refused to admit, though it was getting more and more difficult with every new letter that found its way underneath his door. On the other hand, Blaine was a little far from a perfect boyfriend himself lately. He hadn’t asked Kurt out on a date for the past two weeks. Romance had been limited to late night sexting. But the worst part was the way Blaine had started treating Kurt in Warbler rehearsal. He was always so paranoid about how everyone would perceive him now that he was dating Kurt. He didn’t want to seem like he was playing favorites, which Kurt definitely understood, but that meant Blaine either tore down all of Kurt’s ideas when he came up with one, or he simply didn’t acknowledge him at all.

“I told you, it’s just something that gives me inspiration,” Kurt said. It was a lie of omission. It did give him inspiration. Sebastian’s words of love and devotion gave him inspiration.

“Then, why won’t you let me read it,” Blaine asked, staring at it as if Kurt would just turn it over to him if he looked at it long enough.

“Because it’s private,” Kurt said, like he had many times before. “And I don’t feel comfortable with you reading it.”

Blaine sighed, not ready to continue this argument here in the library.

“I wanted to ask if we could talk about what happened in Warbler practice earlier today,” Blaine started slowly, “with that suggestion you made for a Sondheim medley.”

“You mean the one you shot down without even putting it to a vote?” Kurt bit back. He had just managed to forget about that little piece of humiliation he had to suffer today, especially in front of the other Warblers…and Sebastian.

“Yeah…um…I was hoping that maybe…you’d stop doing that.”

Kurt’s eyes flicked up from his book and he glared at Blaine.

“What do you mean, ‘stop doing that’?” Kurt asked, his voice flat but venomous. Blaine shifted in his seat, looking down at his folded hands, and then back up at Kurt.

“Yeah, Kurt. When you make suggestions like that, you kind of put me in a difficult position.”

“What position is that, Blaine?” Kurt asked, an edge of irritation coloring his voice. “The one where you act like a mature, benevolent leader and let the Warblers decide if my idea is a good one, or the one where you treat me like I’m five and humiliate me?”

“Look,” Blaine said, “I know you’re upset, and I deserved that. But I think I found a compromise we can both live with.”

“And what’s that?” Kurt closed _Macbeth_ and tossed it on the table, crossing one leg over the other and looking significantly into Blaine’s eyes.

“Well, when you have an idea, discuss it with me outside of Warbler rehearsal, and if I think it’s feasible, I’ll present it to the Warblers myself.”

“You’ll present it?” Kurt asked incredulously. “As in, like your idea?”

Blaine scrubbed his hands over his head and sighed.

“Kurt, I just don’t know what else to do.”

“You could always try…oh, I don’t know…treating me like everybody else!” Kurt started gathering up his books, ready to storm out of the library.

“But you’re not like everybody else, Kurt.”

Kurt stopped. For the past few weeks he had been waiting for a moment – like the one in the library when he first found the book and first started falling in love with its mysterious author. _This_ was a moment. Blaine might still have it in him to be the romantic boy that Kurt fell in love with. They could pull through and make it, and that journal Kurt had been carrying around…maybe it was just a book. What Kurt had with Blaine was real. Somewhere deep inside he felt that it was a possibility.

“I’m not?” Kurt asked, watching Blaine’s face change, morphing into a soft, boyish smile.

“Of course not,” Blaine said. “You’re my boyfriend, and because of that we have to be careful.”

Kurt sighed. The moment disappeared, but Kurt owed it to Blaine to give him another chance.

“Blaine, can you do me a favor?” Kurt asked, eyes flicking down to the overflowing journal.

“Anything.”

“I’ll agree to your…compromise,” Kurt said, the last word causing bile to rise to his mouth and sting his tongue, “if you do something for me.”

“What is that?”

“Write me a poem?” Kurt beseeched, eyes pleading with Blaine for him to be a better boyfriend than he’d been for the past few weeks.

“Write you a poem?” Blaine asked, his nose scrunching.

“Or a story, or a song, or three sentences describing something you like about me. Just something that’s yours…before next Warbler rehearsal.”

“Sure,” Blaine said, sounding a bit confused. “Anything for you, Kurt.”

Kurt sighed, relaxing into the crook of his boyfriend’s arm when he wrapped it around his waist and led him along.

That night, Kurt sat up in his bed in the dark and considered all the decisions he’d have to make in the next few days. He was sure his choice would be easy. Blaine would definitely come through for him. He’d have his poem or his song or his three sentences. Maybe they could turn it into a thing, start their own journal, writing back and forth little poems of love and devotion and it would only make their relationship stronger.

Kurt thought about the possibilities all day, about new beginnings and second chances. When he reached the rehearsal room, he saw Blaine talking with Thad and Trent. He bounced over to him and put out an expectant hand, grabbing at the air with his fingers. Blaine smiled, wide and warm, and slipped his hand into Kurt’s, turning back to his conversation with the other two boys. Kurt frowned, shaking his hand from Blaine’s grasp and repeating the motion again.

“Kurt?” Blaine asked. “What’s the matter?”

“Isn’t there something you want to give me?”

Blaine stared blankly at Kurt, and then his eyes went wide.

“Oh God! Kurt! I’m so sorry. I forgot.”

Kurt’s hand dropped from the air, his entire body shrinking as Blaine rambled off excuses about putting together set lists and modifying arrangements, but Kurt stopped listening. He looked around the room at the boys clustered in groups in corners, talking together and otherwise ignoring them except for one, standing by an armchair by the door, looking at him with sympathetic green eyes. Kurt turned away from Blaine, probably mid-sentence, and headed straight for Sebastian. Sebastian’s eyes shifted left and right, his brow furrowing at Kurt’s determined approach. Kurt reached into his messenger bag and pulled out a book – a journal, nowhere near as fancy or expensive as Sebastian’s, but neat and clean and so completely Kurt. He handed the journal to Sebastian, waiting a moment for him to take it. Sebastian felt his heart in his chest, racing desperately to be free of its cage. He reached out carefully and took the book, taking a moment to flip through it and see page after page written in Kurt’s delicate, flowing handwriting.

Sebastian said nothing, simply held the book to his chest, as if protecting it symbolically from the eyes of the world. Kurt smiled and nodded, leaving the rehearsal room without a single look at his stunned boyfriend.

Sebastian looked up at Blaine, watching his hazel eyes bounce frantically between him and Kurt. Sebastian slid the journal into his bag and away from Blaine’s view. He didn’t want Blaine looking at it, or anyone for that matter. The journal belonged to Kurt and Kurt gave it to him. Sebastian picked up his bag and followed suit, leaving the rehearsal room on his way to his own room.

For the first time, Blaine Anderson realized that if he didn’t do something quick, he was going to lose his boyfriend.


	164. My New Dream of You - Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, I’m sorry this took so long but here’s the continuation to the ‘…of you’ series. The first part was 'The Idea of You' - Kurt finds someone’s personal journal in the school library and reads it. He starts to fall in love with the journal’s owner.
> 
> The second part was 'The Reality of You'.
> 
> The ending is becoming a monster so I’ve split it up into a few parts. Here’s the beginning.

Sebastian walked straight to his room and shut the door. He dropped his bag on his bed and sat down beside it, reaching a hand inside and pulling out Kurt’s journal. He held it in his hands but he couldn’t make himself open it. He stared at it, examined it, running a finger up and down the spine, feeling the rough texture of the cover beneath the pads of his fingertips. He measured the weight of it in his hands, and as confused as he was by Kurt giving it to him, it comforted him, too. He wasn’t sure what he would see when he opened it. It might be completely empty; Kurt’s secret way of asking him to write more for him. Of course, Kurt could very well have written 100 plus pages of ‘Fuckyoufuckyoufuckyoufuckyou’, and Sebastian, for his part, recognized that he probably deserved it.

Kurt hadn’t seemed too happy with Blaine when he walked out of the music room. Whatever Blaine had said to Kurt in those seconds before Kurt turned and left seemed to be the culmination of something monumental between them; but that didn’t necessarily mean he’d go running into Sebastian’s arms.

Was that what Sebastian wanted? He wanted Kurt; he knew that for sure, and not just for his body the way most people would likely assume, but for his brilliant mind, his heart, the strength of his convictions. He had complicated, involved dreams about making Kurt his, maybe even making Kurt fall in love with him, but Sebastian didn’t exactly do the boyfriend thing. Boyfriends, in his experience, were a lot of work, and Kurt looked like he could be pretty high maintenance.

He had to admit, though, that it might be worth it.

Sebastian turned the journal over in his hands while he contemplated his own true intentions. If he wasn’t willing to see this through, opening Kurt’s private journal had the potential to do more harm than good. If something Kurt wrote between these pages made Sebastian more infatuated with him than before, his fate would be sealed. There would be no turning away from Kurt Hummel.

After flipping it over and over and not getting anywhere, he decided to at least crack open the cover and see if Kurt wrote anything on the inside: a dedication, an author’s note, or maybe just his name. A small note slipped out, stuck into the spine like an afterthought. Sebastian plucked it out and opened it.

_Sebastian –_

_I asked Blaine to write me a poem. I didn’t want much. I just wanted something from the heart; something that expresses how he really feels about me. If you’re reading this note and you have this journal, that means Blaine didn’t write me the poem I asked him for. A simple little poem. I would have taken a single line if that’s all he had to give. He’s supposed to be in love with me, and he couldn’t write me one tiny little poem. You barely tolerate me and you wrote an entire journal. What does that say about me?_

_Sincerely;_

_Kurt_

Sebastian read the note over and over, but he read the last line twice as many times since it nearly shattered him.

_What does that say about me?_

Sebastian grimaced that Blaine’s lack of attention and consideration would make Kurt doubt his self-worth. He would have to address that in another letter, but for right now the book was open and Sebastian decided it was as good a time as any to see what Kurt had to say.

Every page he saw was filled front and back. Sebastian skimmed them quickly, but he didn’t see a single ‘fuck you’, so he flipped back to the beginning and read it word for word.

_I don’t understand._

Those were the first three words Kurt wrote.

_I don’t understand._

Sebastian chuckled.

“You and me both,” he muttered. “Join the club. We have jackets.”

_I don’t understand how you can say all those beautiful, romantic things in your book about me. Do you really feel that way? I’ve become so comfortable with the idea that you hate me – or at the very least that you despise me. You have no respect for me. You tell me and show me every day. You criticize my clothes. You make fun of my voice. You correct my French even though I know that my translation and accent are impeccable. Everything about me seems to infuriate you. You’re constantly trying to pull me apart. You don’t seem like you’ll be happy until you’ve broken me down into so many pieces that I would never be able to put myself back together again. So how can you say that you think those things about me?_

Sebastian felt every word stinging him, sticking him like a dagger to his heart. He read and he read, but fifteen pages in it got harder and harder to make out the words on the page; because Sebastian’s hands shook.

Because Sebastian had started crying.

Fifteen pages of hurt. Fifteen pages of confusion. Fifteen pages of anger and grief that Sebastian had caused. He tormented Kurt to keep him at arm’s length. He wanted him, and yet he treated him like dirt. Sebastian probably would have just continued on this way, assuming that his was the only heart being torn apart by not admitting his feelings and giving Kurt the chance to accept or reject him.

He forgot there were two hearts in this equation. He forgot there were two people being hurt.

_So many times I looked at you, and you stared through me like I was nothing, like I was less than nothing, and I wondered without trying to care just how it was you could think so little of me. What did I do? What did I say? Students at McKinley bullied me for being gay. I was tossed in dumpsters for being out and proud. But you seem to dislike me simply because I exist. I came here to escape the pain of that hate, and I was happy…until I ran into you. Now I read your journal and discover that hate was just a front to hide your feelings; but it felt so real that I don’t know how to forget it._

_Is it worth it for me to try and learn how?_

Sebastian closed the book and slammed it down beside him on the bed. He sobbed, almost unable to breathe, wiping at his eyes with his fingers to clear his blurry vision. He stood, literally launching himself off the bed with unnecessary force, walking away, putting distance between himself and the book. Guilt ate away at him, gnawing at his soul and his brain with all the terrible things he had said to Kurt in the past, the ways he tried to drive a wedge between him and Blaine.

He could have let him be; he could have let Kurt be happy, but no. He had to be selfish. He had to be stupid. Sebastian grabbed handfuls of his hair in both hands and pulled hard, grunting through clenched teeth more from revulsion then pain. He kicked his desk chair hard, turning it over onto the floor. He kicked it again and again, ridding himself of all his frustration. He stopped only after he heard a sickening crack and thought he might have broken his toe. He wiped his eyes again and caught a glimpse of his desk clock.

7:37 P.M.

He had been locked in his room reading Kurt’s journal for over two hours.

In another 23 minutes he’d miss dinner but that didn’t matter. He didn’t have much of an appetite anyway, but he did need to get out of the dorms and get a breath of fresh air. Sebastian shoved the journal under his pillow and headed out of his room, racing as quickly down the hall as house rules would allow. The hallways were pretty active at this hour with students walking to and from the dining hall, most of them already dressed in regular clothes for the night. A low murmur surrounded him from groups of boys talking and laughing. A few shot a hello his way, but he ignored them, his eyes trained on the double doors ahead that led outside.

He was so close; so close to escaping when Kurt crossed his path –dressed in skinny jeans and a long sleeve, deep blue dress shirt that complemented his eyes perfectly. He waved good-bye to Jeff and Nick, laughing at something they had said, oblivious to a bedraggled Sebastian barreling down the hall, about to cross his path. Sebastian saw him and choked, skidding to a stop and looking around for a room he could duck into. Kurt turned and saw him as he stumbled a step away from him. Their gazes locked and Sebastian noticed the way Kurt’s eyes softened, the way his whole expression seemed sad, or sorry. He read the emotions on Sebastian’s face and he knew.

Sebastian wanted to run and forget about all of it; forget about Kurt and the journal, and lock his heart back away in that stone safe it had been happily suffering in for however long since he had first met Kurt Hummel.

He couldn’t. He had opened the book. There was no going back for him, but he wasn’t sure how to go forward.

He bounded down the hall toward Kurt, and Kurt simply watched him curiously. He grabbed Kurt’s arm and pulled him, looking erratically from side to side until he found what he wanted. He dragged Kurt through the door to a nearby classroom.

Sebastian ushered Kurt in and closed the door behind him. Kurt didn’t say a word. He looped his arms around Sebastian’s neck and held him, hugged him. For the first time since they’d known each other, Kurt embraced him with his whole body, pulling him close to give him comfort.

Sebastian hated it. He wanted to push away, but this was Kurt, and Sebastian was beginning to understand that Kurt wasn’t just this thing that he taunted for his own amusement, and he wasn’t the summation of a few flowery words on a page. He was flesh and spirit and his exceptional mind and his sharp tongue.

He was everything that Sebastian never knew he wanted.

Sebastian wound his arms around Kurt’s body and held him tight. He sighed, melting into Kurt’s arms.

He didn’t know what possessed him to cross the line from hugging to kissing, but without even completely comprehending what he was doing he felt himself pressing his lips gently against Kurt’s skin. He kissed up Kurt’s neck, slowly from his collar to behind his ear. Kurt gasped, trying to step back; a halting, stuttered movement, but when Sebastian wouldn’t let him go he fell into Sebastian’s arms. Sebastian cradled Kurt’s head in his hands and looked into his blue eyes. They stared back at him, wide and trusting, open and honest.

Sebastian breathed him deep, that alluring smell of sweet and spicy and warm, all swirling together in his head, making him feel dizzy.

That scent and the emotions that came with it would always remind Sebastian of Kurt.

Sebastian dropped his head in defeat of those eyes and that smell that would haunt him every day, but right now, they weren’t his to enjoy.

“I’m not going to do it,” Sebastian whispered, shuddering, at war with himself, “I’m not going to turn you into a cheater.”

“Sebastian?” Kurt whispered when he started to walk away. Sebastian shook his head.

“Come to me when you’ve made your decision,” Sebastian said. “I’m not going to push myself on you.”

Sebastian turned and walked out of the room, and rules be damned he sprinted for the outside doors, breaking through them with a deep inhale that failed to erase the scent of Kurt from his head.

He ran across the parking lot. He jumped the fence to the lacrosse field, and he kept going.

***

Blaine saw the notes passing back and forth between them – in classes, in the hallways, after Warbler practice. They were definitely subtle enough. Kurt would palm a note into Sebastian’s hand when they got up from the table after lunch, and Sebastian would slip one beneath the cover of Kurt’s math book in Calculus class.

It wasn’t the existence of the notes that bothered him. Blaine passed notes back and forth with his friends all the time. No, it was the way that Kurt’s face lit up when he opened one and read it. Once when they were studying late, a note made its way beneath Kurt’s door. Kurt didn’t read it, just squirreled it away into his desk drawer, but the way his eyes shone, he looked like Christmas had come early.

What made it worse was that Kurt wouldn’t let Blaine read even one.

Blaine burned with curiosity to see those notes but Kurt wouldn’t show him. Every time Blaine brought them up Kurt would immediately change the subject. The tension over the notes grew into a full scale argument one night while they were studying in Blaine’s bedroom for a literature final.

“But why won’t you let me see them?” Blaine asked, looking up from his book to get Kurt’s full attention which he didn’t seem willing to give at the moment.

“Because they’re really none of your business,” he said, eyes still skimming the words of _The Count of Monte Cristo_.

“They _are_ my business,” Blaine insisted. “You’re my boyfriend and you’re passing secret notes to another guy.”

“Really?” Kurt said, lifting his gaze from his book to peer at his Blaine’s accusing hazel eyes, “What about you? What about all those texts you guys used to send each other? And the pokes on Facebook?”

“Those were all family friendly,” Blaine argued.

“How do I know?” Kurt slammed his book shut. “You never let me see any of them!”

“Because they…”

“…were none of my business?”

Blaine sighed.

“Because they didn’t matter,” Blaine said calmly.

Kurt’s mouth dropped, his brow furrowed. He shook his head with a small, humorless laugh.

“Here!” Kurt stood from his seat. He grabbed a bunch of small notes out of his pocket and dropped them in front of Blaine. “Let’s take a look, shall we?”

Kurt started opening the notes and reading them out loud, dumping them in front of Blaine when he finished.

“Kurt – do you really think that Edgar Allen Poe was a necrophiliac? Kurt – can I borrow your history notes? I fell asleep in class again. Kurt – could you please tell Blaine that Katy Perry is old hats? And we all know he has a hard on for Adam Levine but maybe we could lay off the Maroon 5, too. Kurt – could you please consider lending some of your patented girl clothes to Mrs. Marx? If I have to look at another one of her plaid pant suits I’m going to get up during Speech and Debate and punch her in the neck.”

Kurt took the remainder of the notes and showered them into Blaine’s lap.

“Here’s the rest of them. While you read these, I’m going to go finish studying in my room.”

Kurt gathered together his books, stuffing them into his bag while Blaine sputtered, trying to find a way to convince him to stay.

“Kurt…I’m sorry. You’re right, I really shouldn’t have…”

Kurt sprinted from Blaine’s room before Blaine could figure out the right thing to say that would stop him. He watched Kurt go, sorry for having pushed him, for having doubted him. He racked his brain for some way of making it up to him. Maybe he could get the Warbler council to give him a solo at their next competition. Blaine collected the discarded notes, folding them up neatly and piling them on his comforter. He swept his eyes around his room to make sure he got them all, preparing to take them back to Kurt’s room and apologize again.

On the floor where Kurt had been sitting, Blaine saw a folded piece of paper, almost kicked beneath the bed. He scooted across the mattress and bent low to pick it up.

This note looked different than the others. The notes Kurt had shown him were all written on lined notebook paper, but this one looked like thick parchment, cream colored, with a wax seal affixed to the back. Blaine opened it carefully, trying not to crack the seal. Blaine read the note over quickly, his heart stopping in his chest at the simply written one line poem –

_Every day I am luckier than I was the day before for having one more chance to see you._

Blaine wanted to crumple the paper in his hand, to tear it into tiny pieces and toss it in the trash, but he couldn’t. The note didn’t belong to him, and Kurt might notice that it was missing and come back looking for it. How would he explain destroying it? Blaine looked over the note, and then examined the wax seal which had one single initial embossed into it – the letter ‘S’.

Blaine shouldn’t destroy the letter. It was proof, and it was a warning.

A warning that he had better move quickly if he was going to hold on to Kurt.


	165. My New Dream of You (Part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so here's the second part to the last chapter of the "...of you" series. One more part to go after this :) (Warnings for mention of Klaine/Blaine)

“Did you see that toss that Foley made?” Sebastian laughed, wiping the sweat off his brow with his towel. “What the fuck’s up with that weak ass right arm?”

Sebastian double checked his cleats for mud clods before he walked through the door to the dorms. He was thoroughly exhausted from practice and all he needed was another nag fest from Cedric the janitor for tracking mud over the floors. Sebastian often wondered if Dalton Academy actually paid the man to clean or to argue with the students.

“What do _you_ think’s up with it?” Derek, his co-captain, laughed, making a rude gesture up and down his lacrosse stick with his hand. Sebastian shook his head and chuckled.

“Yeah, well, considering how long it’s been since he’s seen Cynthia I imagine that right hand of his sees a lot of action,” Sebastian quipped. “No wonder he can’t pass worth shit.”

Derek nearly doubled over with laughter, clapping Sebastian on the shoulder.

“You would think all that exercise would improve his wrist strength,” Derek choked out.

“No way, man,” Sebastian said. He caught a pair of intense eyes staring at him from across the commons and his laughter died a bit in his throat. “Have you ever heard of carpal tunnel? Repetitive motion sickness?”

Derek broke down again, laughing enough for both of them since Sebastian stopped laughing when the pristinely dressed Warbler eying him from across the room got up from his seat and approached the two lacrosse co-captains.

“Hey, Derek,” Blaine said with the impression of a sincere smile on his face, but Sebastian couldn’t help the feeling that something about his cheerful demeanor felt off. “You guys have a good practice?”

“Hey, Blaine!” Derek raised a hand and offered Blaine an enthusiastic high-five. “Don’t you know it!”

Derek only knew Blaine in passing. They had the same A. P. Biology class together. Derek wouldn’t sense anything wrong with Blaine, but Sebastian saw it hiding in the dark glint in his eyes, the way they shifted from Derek’s face to Sebastian’s, lingering for longer than necessary, and then back to Derek.

“You shoulder consider trying out for the team,” Derek offered. “We can always use a few more guys who know their way around a stick.”

Derek chuckled at his own joke, his eyes squinting, tears racing down his cheeks. Blaine chuckled halfheartedly along with Derek, gluing his gaze back to Sebastian’s face.

“Nah, I’m more of a boxer,” Blaine said, addressing Sebastian more than Derek. “I’ll leave the lacrosse sticks to you two Neanderthals.”

“You’re all right, Blaine,” Derek said, but Sebastian, watching the emotions shift on his face, the way his eyes narrowed one minute and then shined with the reflection of his smile the next, wasn’t convinced.

“Would you mind if I stole Sebastian for a bit?” Blaine asked. “There are some things I need to confer with him about. You know, Warbler to Warbler.” Blaine elbowed Derek in the side playfully, and Derek sniggered.

“Be careful, Blaine. You have a boyfriend, remember?” Derek teased. He turned to Sebastian and for the first time noticed the unexpected change in his friend’s expression; from joking to solemn in almost the blink of an eye.

“Hey, is everything okay, Seb?” Derek asked.

“Yeah,” Sebastian said after a pause, forcing on a smile that he hoped would pass for okay, “I’m good. Go shower, Der. You stink.”

“Like you smell any better,” Derek said, waving his hand in front of his nose and making a disgusted face. “I’ll see you at dinner.”

“It’s a date,” Sebastian called after him, keeping one wary eye on Blaine.

“Geez, man,” Derek whined, “don’t say that out loud.”

Sebastian waited until Derek was far enough down the hall to be well out of earshot, and then turned his attention to Blaine who wasn’t smiling any more.

Blaine stared at Sebastian; his hazel eyes roaming over Sebastian’s body uncomfortably from his sweaty hair stuck in clumps around his face, down his dirt and grass stained uniform, all the way to his soiled socks and shoes. By the time his eyes returned to Sebastian’s face the disturbingly bright smile had returned.

Sebastian always called it Blaine’s ‘superstar’ smile, but in reality it was more along the lines of Blaine baring his teeth.

“Let’s sit,” Blaine offered, motioning to one of the tables lining the main hallway. Sebastian nodded, taking the seat closest to him as Blaine slipped into the chair opposite. The tables in the hallway were small and on the side of being claustrophobic when you added the amount of shrouded anger radiating off of Blaine’s body.

Blaine looked down at the table, eyes tracing the veins of gold in the faux marble table top as he gathered his thoughts. He cleared his throat and Sebastian rolled his eyes, wishing Blaine would get whatever this was over with so he could go shower the mud and sweat off his body before dinner. Dinner was an hour away, and it felt weird admitting to himself that he wanted to clean up and dress nice for Kurt when Kurt’s boyfriend sat mere feet away.

“Why do you keep writing Kurt poems?” Blaine asked, raising his eyes to Sebastian’s face.

Sebastian wore his poker face as close to perfect as he could get it. He didn’t want to seem surprised that Blaine knew about the poems. Realistically he knew that he would end up finding out eventually, but one thing Sebastian knew for sure was that Kurt wouldn’t have willingly let him see them so Blaine had to have snooped. That made Sebastian livid, thinking that Blaine would feel so privileged as to rifle through Kurt’s private things.

“How come you couldn’t write him _one_?” Sebastian countered.

“Whether or not I write him a stupid poem is none of your business,” Blaine said calmly. “He’s _my_ boyfriend, not yours.”

“He’s my…friend,” Sebastian said, but his argument sounded weak even to his own ears.

“Since when?” Blaine cut Sebastian off with a bark of laughter. “Would that be when you said he had a bad luck case of the gay face, or those times you flirted with me?”

Sebastian opened his mouth, and then closed it, swallowing Blaine’s accusation.

“Yeah, he told me about that,” Blaine said smugly. “He told me about all the insults. He tells me _everything_.”

Sebastian paused to choose his words carefully.

“Kurt and I…” Sebastian started, trying to find an ambiguous way to describe the new relationship they’ve developed, “we’ve worked out our differences.”

“Have you?” Blaine asked sarcastically.

“Yes, we have,” Sebastian said, his voice tight. “I’ve changed.”

Blaine scoffed and shook his head; Sebastian bristled at his condescension.

“People change,” Sebastian defended.

“No, I don’t think you _have_ changed.” Blaine leaned over the table; smirking superiorly, grimacing with odium – his face couldn’t seem to decide what emotion it wanted to portray. “I think the only thing that really changed is that you couldn’t get into my pants, so you decided to try and get into my boyfriend’s pants instead.”

Every inch of Sebastian’s skin went cold with rage; his hands gripping hard onto his lacrosse stick, threatening to break it in two.

“I’m not trying to get into your boyfriend’s pants, Blaine,” Sebastian growled. “But if you’re afraid there’s even a chance that he would leave you for me, don’t you think you should be hard at work trying to find some way to win him back instead of bitching and whining at me?”

“Why do I need to win him back?” Blaine challenged. “He’s mine. I already won him. You’re implying I have to win him back from you, but why would I need to do that unless you were making moves on him?”

A tense silence fell between them as Sebastian tried to find a way to rise to Blaine’s challenge. How could he defend himself against something that was partially true, even if this all started mostly by accident?

Echoing footsteps from the far end of the hall interrupted the stalemate, and Blaine sat back down in his seat, adjusting his uniform jacket, smoothing out the wrinkles with a shaking hand.

“Hey Blaine! Sebastian!” Thad said as he walked passed them.

“Hey, Thad!” Blaine recovered so quickly that Sebastian nearly got whiplash watching him. His mood shifts were becoming unsettling, and Sebastian’s stomach turned thinking that Blaine might go straight from this conversation up to see Kurt in his room.

“I’ll see you guys later for Warbler practice.”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Sebastian said, but he couldn’t affect a fake smile as convincingly as Blaine could. Thad frowned at him, but nodded at a grinning Blaine before continuing down the hall and out the doors.

Blaine turned back to Sebastian and the scowl returned.

“There’s no way Kurt is going to leave me for you, Sebastian, and do you know why?”

Sebastian knew it was a rhetorical question, but out of morbid curiosity he sat and listened because nothing Blaine could say would be worse than the things he had already told himself a hundred times before.

He smirked, leaning forward to close the gap between him and Blaine.

“I’m all ears, Blaine,” Sebastian sneered. “Let me have it.”

“Because you’re a bully, Sebastian,” Blaine said. “And if there’s one thing that Kurt hates it’s a bully.”

Sebastian’s cocky grin slipped an inch, and Blaine smiled wider.

“Kurt’s had to fight bullies before,” Blaine continued in the same soft, menacing voice. “We fought them together. So you can write him all the poems you want, Smythe, but at the end of the day, he’s mine. He kisses me…he wants me…he _loves_ me. So back off!”

A lump grew in Sebastian’s throat as Blaine’s eyes burned into his, but he refused to look away. Blaine pushed his chair back from the table and stood, holding Sebastian’s gaze, the cheerful façade returning to his face, switching on like a light.

“So, that’s the end of that,” Blaine said. “Hey…I’ll see you at practice.”

Blaine winked at Sebastian, patting him on the shoulder as he walked away. Sebastian, too paralyzed by his own conflict of moral and reason, turned and watched him go. Blaine had a point. Who was Sebastian really to try his hand at winning Kurt’s affections? Sebastian _was_ a bully, and always had been where Kurt was concerned. He had expected a confrontation on Blaine’s part, but nothing like this. This was a side of Blaine that Sebastian had never seen before. He was curious if Kurt had.

Adrenaline coursed through the blood in his veins, the rush of it pounding in his ears, sounding like it had no intention at all of stopping. From that moment on Sebastian made a mental note to keep a close eye on Blaine Anderson.

***

Kurt scribbled down a few equations on his paper, then compared them to his graph.

“So the limit is negative one,” he mumbled, and checked his graph again. “Or positive two?”

He huffed and erased his equation for the fifth time, holding the paper taut so he didn’t rub a hole through the thinning paper. Calculus wasn’t his favorite subject, but it usually didn’t give him this much trouble. Kurt slammed his pencil down on his desk and dropped his head into his hands, running his fingers through his hair with frustration. How was he supposed to do math when all he could concentrate on was the feeling of Sebastian’s lips sliding up his neck, searing his skin with kisses everywhere they touched? Sebastian might be gone, but the marks still remained, a scalding hot brand embedded in his skin. Kurt subconsciously ran his fingers lightly over them, searching them out.

Kurt was so confused. He didn’t know where to go from here. If Sebastian had tried to kiss him weeks ago, before he found that book, this would all be so simple. A hard shove, a slap to the face, and his weekly scheduled make-out session with Blaine would scrub all of this off his skin and out of his memory. But now…he had no answers.

To top it off, Blaine would be there any minute. Kurt debated whether or not he should tell him. If another boy had kissed Blaine, even on the neck, even if it meant nothing, Kurt would want to know.

If it meant nothing.

Did it mean nothing?

For now it had to. He was still Blaine’s boyfriend, and till he made a decision otherwise, anything Sebastian had to offer he needed to push to the side.

Kurt jolted from his thoughts and turned in his chair at a slight tapping sound against his door. It swung open a crack and Blaine peeked his head inside.

“Is it safe to come in?” he asked, sweeping his eyes around Kurt’s room.

“Yeah,” Kurt said, turning back to his homework and moving on to the next Calculus example. He blinked as the dense, black expanse of sines, cosines and unidentified variables darkened the page. “You were supposed to be here a while ago. You know your Calc homework isn’t going to do itself.”

“I know, I know,” Blaine said, walking up to Kurt’s chair. He put a hand on Kurt’s shoulder and placed a light kiss on the back of Kurt’s head, peeking over at the example he was laboring over. “For number nineteen, the limit does not exist.”

“Thank you!” Kurt sighed in relief, fixing his graph and the consequent equation. Kurt looked up at Blaine who stared back at him with an unreadable expression.

“Where have you been, anyway?” Kurt asked, trying to figure out the strange way Blaine’s eyes examined his face. “You’re almost an hour late.”

“I could tell you, but I don’t think you’d believe me,” Blaine said, acting intentionally vague.

Kurt sat back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest, eyes hardening, not in the mood for guessing games when over thirty more Calculus examples had to be finished by tomorrow.

“Try me,” Kurt said.

Blaine sighed, looking at Kurt, his face frighteningly serious.

“I was in the main hall neutering a large dog.”

Kurt’s jaw dropped, stunned by Blaine’s off the wall response, but then Blaine smiled, and Kurt smiled with him, laughing awkwardly at his odd answer.

“Actually, I went to get you this.” Blaine pulled his arm from behind his back and handed Kurt a newly opened long-stemmed red rose.

“Blaine!” Kurt gasped, his cold eyes and confused face melting into a soft smile. “It’s beautiful. But what’s the occasion?”

“No occasion,” Blaine said, sitting down on the bed, tugging Kurt’s arm and pulling him off his desk chair to sit down next to him. “It’s more of an apology.”

Blaine eyed Kurt as he sniffed the rose, a subtle blush rising to his smooth, pale cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” Blaine continued, “for the past few weeks…and the poem…and for making you feel like your opinion isn’t important. It is important.” Kurt turned from the rose to look at Blaine. “You’re important.”

“Really?” Kurt whispered, holding the rose close to his heart.

“Really,” Blaine said. “And I thought that maybe we can kind of start new? Expand our horizons?”

“I don’t understand,” Kurt said, suddenly struck by a sense of déjà vu when the words left his mouth.

“Well, remember all those things we added to your bucket list?” Blaine asked. Kurt’s cheeks went a shade redder and Blaine knew he understood. “I thought we could start there.”

“W-where…exactly?” Kurt asked, remembering some of the more racy things they had added after Blaine have Kurt a heated hand job in his room.

“How about we head over to Scandals this weekend?”

Blaine smirked, leaning in close to Kurt and speaking against his neck right below his ear, his breath covering one of the spots that Sebastian had kissed.

“Isn’t Scandals a bar?” Kurt asked, scooting across the bed and putting a bit of distance between himself and his boyfriend.

“Yeah.” Blaine gently kissed down the length of Kurt’s neck and Kurt sighed. It was nice. Neck kisses were Kurt’s favorite, and Blaine knew it; but it wasn’t the same now.

Blaine’s kisses were sedate and tame.

Sebastian’s kisses burned…just like he said in the journal. They set Kurt on fire.

Kurt trembled at the memory.

He wanted to burn some more.

He closed his eyes and tried to imagine what it felt like, repulsed by himself for using Blaine’s kisses to relive that memory, but it didn’t work.

“How are we going to get into a bar, Blaine?” Kurt stammered. “We’re not 21.”

Blaine trailed his tongue up the length of Kurt’s neck and Kurt wanted to cry. His stomach churned into a knot, pulling hard until the stabbing pain shot up into his chest. Blaine was his boyfriend; he should want this, want to be kissed by him after so many weeks of feeling neglected. But the image of a wrecked and ruined Sebastian racing down the hall, finding him, pulling him into an empty classroom and holding him, kissing him, wanting him…

The kisses…

The journal…

All those words…

His green eyes…

His hands holding his head…

Kurt didn’t know what to do. He felt trapped, but he couldn’t let Blaine wash those kisses away. He just couldn’t. Maybe Kurt was the worst boyfriend in history, and maybe if there is a hell he’ll be down there in the fire suffering for all eternity, but right now he didn’t care.

Kurt broke away from Blaine’s kiss and stood, moving back to his desk chair, panting and breathless from the pain in his stomach that walloped him like a fist.

He looked up and saw a sudden flash of anger in Blaine’s eyes.

It was fleeting, and maybe Kurt imagined it.

There seemed to be nothing he was altogether sure of anymore.

“Jeff knows a guy who can get us some fake i.d.’s,” Blaine continued, flustered but otherwise nonplussed, hazel eyes shining back at Kurt fondly.

Whatever Kurt thought he saw definitely gone.

Kurt folded his hands in his lap, weaving his fingers together as he thought. Last week he couldn’t get Blaine to take him to a movie because he had to spend the weekend perfecting a set list, and now they were going to drive a couple hours out of their way to go to a gay bar? Maybe Blaine was actually trying to work on their relationship. Shouldn’t Kurt give him the benefit of the doubt?

A tiny voice in the back of his mind objected, but that voice sounded an awful lot like Sebastian, so how could he trust it completely?

Kurt watched Blaine’s eyes change into those sweetly pleading, puppy dog eyes that managed to do him in every time. Kurt rolled his eyes and laughed.

“Turn down the cute, Blaine,” Kurt giggled. “I’ll go.”

“Yeah!” Blaine cheered, standing up off the bed and hugging Kurt tight. He nuzzled Kurt’s neck, breathing him in, grinning happily against his skin, and one thought entered his brain.

_Mine._

 

 

 

 

 


	166. My New Dream of You - Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long to get up. I think there will only be one more chapter after this, but who knows! Warning for mention of Blaine/Klaine.

_Knocknocknocknocknocknock…_

Spitfire pounding like the firing of an old school gatling gun on Sebastian’s dorm room door interrupted his not too effective studying for the AP French test he had first period in the morning. Not that he really needed to study; he spoke the language like a native, but he had hoped that reviewing gerunds until his brain bled would distract him from thinking about Kurt, Blaine, and that fucked up conversation in the hallway the day before. If it had just been the usual back and forth sarcastic banter that he normally traded with most opponents, he could brush it off and move on. But the way Blaine talked, especially about Kurt, disturbed him. Blaine had gotten under his skin and wouldn’t leave him be, like a sore you can’t stop itching even after the wound is healed over. He knew that Kurt was a big boy who could take care of himself, but Blaine was as close to Kurt as any human could be, and because of that, Sebastian began to worry about him.

If Kurt did something that upset Blaine, would Blaine go off the deep end and hurt him?

The knocking continued relentlessly, untiring, joined by a second fist filling in the off-beats, and Sebastian knew exactly which Dalton delinquent darkened his door.

“For God’s sake, Sterling!” Sebastian called out loud enough for the manic boy to hear, “just come the fuck in already!”

“Hey, Bas…” Jeff started speaking even before he opened the door, “do you still know that guy that makes fake i.d.’s? The dude that works at Kinko’s?”

“Maybe,” Sebastian said, not even the least bit curious. “Wait, didn’t you have a guy?”

“Yeah, but it looks like he got arrested or something.”

Sebastian scoffed.

_Amateurs._

“Why do you need fake i.d.’s for?” Sebastian toyed with Jeff, deciding to prolong his suffering. “Are you thinking of taking Duval to a strip club or something?”

“It’s not for me,” Jeff said, hopping up onto the edge of Sebastian’s desk. He plucked a pencil from a cup on the blotter, positioned it on his upper lip, and rolled it up towards his nose. Sebastian watched Jeff violate his pencil with a look of disgust.

“Who is it for, then?” Sebastian asked, then added, “You can keep that pencil, by the way.”

“Blaine needs them,” Jeff said, crossing his eyes as he tried to watch the pencil balance on his upper lip, bouncing beneath his nose while he talked. “He’s taking Kurt to some bar in Lima. _Sandals_ I think he said it was called.”

Sebastian’s eyebrows shot up. He turned to Jeff, fixing him with a piercing glare that he meant for Blaine.

“Scandals?” Sebastian clarified.

“No…” Jeff replied, staring off into the distance while he searched his memory for the name.

“Jeff,” Sebastian said, blowing out a breath, his whole body rigid with frustration, “the name of the bar is Scandals.”

“No…” Jeff said again, racking his brain. Sebastian shoved him hard off the edge of the desk. Jeff flailed to keep his balance, scowling at Sebastian for a second, but when he caught sight of the pencil still poised on his lip, he gave a silent cheer of triumph, his arms raised like goal-posts in the air.

“When did Blaine say they were going?” Sebastian pressed. He felt an urgent need to run off and find Kurt; to talk to him and maybe give him a clue that…that what? His boyfriend might be mentally unstable? That he might even be dangerous? Sebastian had to face facts. He didn’t know a single person who attended Dalton who would buy that. In fact, before that little incident in the hallway, if someone had tried to convince Sebastian that Blaine wasn’t ‘all there’, he would have laughed out loud. Dapper, a gentleman, a nice ass, a little too much into his raspberry scented hair gel and top 40 hits, but otherwise harmless.

As it turned out, maybe not so harmless.

“Uh, well, he wanted them before this weekend, and I know he’s got that family dinner Sunday night, so my guess is Saturday, maybe.”

Sebastian nodded his head, filing away Jeff’s intel. Luckily, Jeff didn’t seem to catch on to the fact that Sebastian was more interested than he originally let on.

“So, will you do it?”

Sebastian started formulating a plan. Knowing the management at Scandals it probably wouldn’t stop them from getting in, but it might slow them down.

“Yeah, I’ll do it, but this is between you and me, Sterling,” Sebastian said, standing from his desk and backing Jeff into a corner. “Don’t tell Blaine you got them from me.”

“Why not?” Jeff muttered, oblivious to the fact that he was being herded, or that Sebastian was staring at him like his life depended on his discretion.

“I just don’t want him to know, alright?”

“But…”

“Sterling,” Sebastian said, “keep it a secret or Duval’s parents find out exactly who he got mono from last semester. Dig?”

Jeff’s eyes widened at the threat.

“Harsh,” he said. “That’s not cool, man.”

“Then I think we understand each other.”

“Fine. Whatever.” Jeff slid down the wall sideways to get away from where Sebastian had him pinned. “So, I’ll pick them up…”

“You’ll get them when you get them,” Sebastian said dismissively, returning to his desk and his list of a hundred French verbs. Sebastian didn’t watch Jeff leave. He stared blankly at his book and waited till the squeak of Jeff’s Converse sneakers died out down the hall. Then he got up from his desk and ran off to find Kurt.

***

Kurt stopped in the hallway, double-checking his bag for his French text book. He had a whole night of studying planned. He had to do at least as well as Sebastian on this test or he’d never hear the end of it. In fact, he had a note in his possession from the man himself telling him so. Kurt grinned, thinking of all the good-natured teasing that would follow a subpar (meaning not an A+) grade. He envisioned note after note flying beneath his door like Harry Potter’s Hogwarts notices from _The Sorcerer’s Stone -_ each one written on that thick, marbled parchment paper Sebastian used, and sealed with wax - and saying pretty much the same thing:

_“Dear Mr. Hummel:_

_You are cordially invited to suck it because I got a higher grade than you…”_

Cheekily, his mind supplied the line:

_“You can perform said sucking in my dorm room on Saturday night.”_

Holy hell! What was he thinking?

Kurt Elizabeth Hummel, you have a boyfriend!

A boyfriend who had been lukewarm about _being_ a boyfriend as of late.

A boyfriend who couldn’t be bothered to follow through with a simple request.

A boyfriend whose current idea of a romantic date was getting fake i.d.’s and going to a gay bar.

Kurt wasn’t completely sure why he had agreed to go in the first place. He really didn’t want to go, but sometimes it was hard to say no to Blaine. Kurt could understand Blaine wanting to go on a date after so long with so much emotional turmoil between them, but if Blaine wanted to dance with him, they could always put on some slow music in Kurt's room, dim the lights, and dance there. It would be nice – alone, without the noise, the stench of stale beer, or the occasional solicitation.

Call him silly, but the idea of bathroom sex never did appeal to Kurt. It sounded filthy, uncomfortable, and a bit demoralizing. Kurt closed his eyes for a second, thinking about an evening of slow dancing in his room, but in his mind it was Sebastian’s body pressed against his, swaying back and forth to an old, melancholy love song, and not Blaine's, the spicy scent of Sebastian’s cologne lingering in his nostrils (Kurt didn’t know when he had set that smell to memory), Sebastian placing hidden kisses in his hair. He opened his eyes to look down into his bag, hand locked around the spine of his French text book, and in the bag’s contents all he saw was Sebastian – Sebastian’s journal, Sebastian’s notes folded together and wrapped in gold cord, the pencil Sebastian had lent him when Kurt’s went missing before their last test, his homework with Sebastian’s corrections scrawled into the margin along with a few raunchy doodles and an X-rated haiku.

All roads seemed to point to Sebastian, so why wasn’t Kurt taking them?

Kurt folded the flap down over his bag and took a step, but a strong hand grabbed his arm and dragged him into a nearby room.

Kurt didn’t even need to look up into the smirking boy’s face to know who would manhandle him that way. Except when he did look, the boy wasn’t smirking.

The boy looked like he had seen a ghost.

“Seriously,” Kurt muttered, fixing his jacket, checking to make sure the fabric hadn't torn, “is this going to turn into a thing with you?”

“I needed to talk to you,” Sebastian said, “in private.”

“Well, you could have said something like, ‘Kurt, can I talk to you in private?’”

“I heard that Blaine is taking you to Scandals.”

Kurt stopped fussing over his jacket and looked Sebastian in the face.

“Yeah. It’s kind of like a date, I guess. Why?”

Sebastian sighed, taking Kurt’s hands and holding them. It was a painful indulgence, but it was the only one he would allow himself to have.

“You know why,” Sebastian said, a simple statement that took all of his strength to say and left him emptier since he had already guessed what Kurt’s response would be.

Kurt sighed.

“Sebastian, I have to at least give him the chance to make this up to me. He _is_ my boyfriend.”

Sebastian hedged over a few words, statements, declarations, his mouth hovering around sentiments and then swallowing them back.

“Do you still love him?” he asked finally. It sounded a lot better than what he was really thinking. _Don’t I even have a chance?_

“I…” Kurt’s knee jerk reaction was to say yes, of course yes, I love him, but when the time came, the words refused to leave his mouth. He did love Blaine, but it didn’t seem the same anymore. Even if he would always love Blaine, he had seriously started to consider whether or not he and Blaine made sense anymore. It wasn’t something he wanted to admit out loud, not yet, and not to Sebastian. There was no need to give Sebastian hope where they might not be any.

“I…I know what you’re getting at, Sebastian,” Kurt said sympathetically, “I do. And I’m thinking about it. I promise.”

Sebastian let go of Kurt’s hands and stepped back, crossing his arms over his chest and staring down at his black Oxfords against the maple-washed hardwood floor.

“Sebastian, I’m still getting used to the idea that you like me,” Kurt argued, “and I don’t know, but I feel like I need to give him a shot.”

Sebastian’s pride ached. He knew from the beginning that this was how the conversation would probably go, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t entertained the fantasy of Kurt denouncing Blaine completely and falling into his arms. Regardless, there was another pressing matter at stake, and Sebastian couldn’t let Kurt leave until he warned him.

“Kurt, there’s something I need to tell you,” he started, “about Blaine.” He rolled his own eyes at how trite and lame that sounded, but he couldn’t think of any other straightforward way to broach the subject.

“What about Blaine?” Kurt’s brow knit in the center and he crossed his arms, stepping backward to put some space between them. Sebastian didn’t know if Kurt was preparing to defend Blaine blindly in favor of listening to what he had to say. He hoped that he knew Kurt better, that Kurt would have more sense than that.

“Do you think…” Sebastian started and stopped, thinking the whole conversation through in his head before he started again, “…have you ever…when Blaine gets…angry…ERRR!”

“Sebastian…” Kurt gazed up into his eyes with a look of honest confusion, “I don’t understand what you’re trying to…”

Sebastian gave up. Even with all his good intentions, knowing that he was right, there was no way for him to win.

“Just…be careful,” Sebastian said in exasperation. “Be careful around your boyfriend.” The words stung Sebastian’s mouth, and he longed to kiss Kurt and soothe the bite, but he didn’t. He wasn’t lying when he said he didn’t want to turn Kurt into a cheater.

“I will,” Kurt said with a smile. He stepped up to Sebastian and put a hand on his arm. Kurt wanted to hold Sebastian, to feel his body against him, but he couldn’t be that cruel. This small, friendly gesture was all he had right now to give. Sebastian sucked in a quick breath at the feel of Kurt resting his hand on his arm. He wanted to hold onto that feeling in case he never got it again.

Kurt walked past Sebastian and out the door, heading back to his dorm room and the long night of studying ahead of him.

Sebastian exhaled, balling his hands into fists and squeezing them until his hands shook. ‘ _Stupid, stupid, cowardly, stupid!’_ he chanted in his head as his fingernails pressed into his palms and left crescent moon marks in his skin. He had his chance and he blew it. What was he thinking? Sebastian sank down into a heavy leather armchair, burying his head in his hands. He had a few days. Maybe he could still turn things around.

Except that in the end he didn’t have those days. Blaine glued himself to Kurt’s side and never left. He walked Kurt to and from every class, they ate all their meals together, they studied late into the night. At one point, Sebastian went for broke and slipped a note beneath Kurt’s door. He figured Kurt would see it and intercept it, Blaine or no Blaine, but Kurt must have been in the bathroom because an hour later the note made it’s way back underneath Sebastian’s door, unopened and unread, with a message scrawled across the outside: _Good try, but no more of that, Sebastian. – B_

Sebastian barely ate; he didn’t sleep. Before Kurt went to Scandals with Blaine, before whatever Blaine intended on happening…happened, there were some things he needed Kurt to know.

His only chance came about fifteen minutes before Kurt and Blaine were set to leave. Sebastian watched Blaine walk out to the parking lot to get his i.d.’s from Jeff. Sebastian knew exactly when this would go down because he had asked Jeff to call Blaine out into the parking lot to hand them off. He needed to get Blaine out of the dorms if he was going to have any chance of talking to Kurt alone. Once he figured Blaine was far enough away, Sebastian raced to Kurt’s room. His heart traveled steadily up his chest the whole way there so that by the time he knocked on the door he could feel it pounding in his throat.

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” he heard Kurt sing out, though not in the chipper, upbeat way he usually sounded. It broke Sebastian’s heart that Kurt sounded nervous. It broke more to think that maybe, just maybe, Sebastian was the reason why he sounded that way. Kurt turned the doorknob. Sebastian saw it swing open and he didn’t wait. He pushed himself inside and closed it behind him, turning the lock so they wouldn’t be disturbed if Dapper Dan came back earlier than expected.

“Sebastian! What the…” Kurt stumbled backward as Sebastian led him, stopping once his back came in contact with the wall. Sebastian boxed him in, one hand leaning against the wall on each side of his head. Kurt felt Sebastian, even though he didn’t lean the weight of his body against him. Sebastian’s breath washed over his skin, warm and chill all at once, smelling slightly of peppermint and coffee. His body trembled from being so close, and Kurt found it was contagious, his own body shivering in response.

“Y-you said you wouldn’t push yourself on me,” Kurt stuttered, his words rushing out to reach Sebastian when, in this moment, it seemed that Sebastian might cross another line. His lips hovered so close, his eyes burning the way they always did when he got Kurt alone - in a way that filled Kurt with so much excitement that he almost crossed the line himself. In these seconds between decision and indecision, Sebastian seemed so dangerous. He was a head taller than Kurt, faster and stronger - Kurt didn’t have to see him dominate the field during lacrosse practice to know for sure (though admittedly he had peeked once or twice).

Kurt wasn’t afraid.

A little part of him, a new and unexplored part of him, wanted it.

“I’m not pushing myself on you.” Sebastian’s voice, breathless and devilishly sexy, sent Kurt’s imagination whirling again, picturing Sebastian lying beside him, panting, spent, quivering lips devouring sweaty skin. Kurt swallowed and wished it away. It made keeping himself grounded so much harder.

“I just have something I need to say, and I need you to hear me.”

Kurt nodded, his head banging lightly against the wall as he pressed himself further against it.

“Okay,” Kurt squeaked.

“Okay,” Sebastian repeated, using that word as his jumping off point, hoping he’d land on his feet when he finished. “Kurt, I fell for you the first moment I saw you…”

Kurt heard himself gasp, even though the choked sound seemed overly dramatic and cliché. He couldn’t help himself. He remembered that first day in the Lima Bean, the look that he interpreted as derision in Sebastian’s eyes, the way his lips formed a perfect ‘o’ of surprise when he reached out a hand to shake his, the way his eyes continuously flicked back and forth between his face and Blaine’s, as if in saying, “You have got to be kidding. There’s no way this gorgeous guy is in love with _you_ , lady face”.

“…but I couldn’t afford to feel that way. I couldn’t afford to want you that way, but I didn’t want Blaine to have you, either. So I tried to push you away and I tried to split you guys apart. That’s why I went after Blaine. I thought I could kill two birds with one stone.”

Kurt stared up at Sebastian with morbid curiosity, his face adrift somewhere between amazement and disgust at the confession he heard. It made sense in a bizarre, twisted way. The fact that Sebastian’s mind worked so sinisterly that _that_ was the conclusion he came up with astounded Kurt. He would have shoved him away. He was fully prepared to tell him to leave and never come back if Sebastian hadn’t leaned in closer and whispered in a voice on the verge of shattering, “Please, please, please believe me when I say I am so sorry for valuing my own asinine stupidity over you…over what’s in your heart. I’d give anything to go back and change it all. I swear to God I would.”

Sebastian pushed off the wall and stormed out of the room, leaving a bewildered and bereft Kurt standing with his eyes open wide and his mouth ridiculously agape to wonder what exactly he was supposed to do now.


	167. My New Dream of You - Part 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Continuing on from where Sebastian left Kurt in his bedroom waiting for Blaine. This is a partial re-write of 'The First Time'. Warning for underage drinking, attempted sexual assault, physical violence, anxiety and mild PTSD. Also Klaine/Blaine.

When Blaine returned to Kurt’s room, he found Kurt stunned, paralyzed, standing up against the wall, trembling from the top of his perfectly coiffed and newly highlighted hair down to his knees, which knocked together in his too-skinny-to-be-healthy dark wash jeans.

“Kurt?” Blaine crossed the room, looking all around in case he was missing something. “Kurt? Are you alright? You look like you’ve just seen a rat or something.”

“No, not a rat,” Kurt said, turning blown blue eyes to Blaine’s concerned face. “I just…” Kurt shook his head, recovering slowly, forming some semblance of a smile on his unnaturally pale face. “Are we ready to go?”

“Yup,” Blaine said, his expression quickly morphing from concern to excitement as he patted the jeans pocket that held his wallet and now two fake i.d.s. “Let’s get going.”

Kurt drove; he always drove. He input the address of the bar into Google maps on his phone and let Blaine fiddle with his iPod, picking out songs for a road trip playlist. He remembered the days when they first started dating and they would find any excuse to go for a drive - Friday night dinners with Kurt’s family, McKinley High football games, Glee concerts, almost daily coffee at the Lima Bean because their nonfat mochas tasted better than the Starbucks in Westerville (regardless of the rumored mouse problem). He and Blaine would sing perfectly practiced flirty duets the whole ride, and it meant so much to Kurt that they could be so in sync. Now as Kurt’s thoughts drifted to the conversation he had with Sebastian causing him to miss his entrance during a rousing rendition of Pink’s _Perfect_ , he realized that all he and Blaine did on these car rides was sing. They really never talked; not about the important things, at least, like goals, ambitions, or the future.

Kurt knew the basics. He knew Blaine’s coffee order. He knew how Blaine felt about the Katy Perry vs. Lady Gaga debate. He knew that Blaine preferred bowties to neckties, and that his favorite brand of hair gel was Cover Boy (which was apparently extremely expensive). On some of the more important subjects, Kurt found he was actually rather clueless.

Kurt never made a secret of the fact that he wanted to go to school in New York, more than likely Julliard. Sebastian told Kurt that he planned to attend NYU. As far as Blaine went, Kurt didn’t know what college he was considering.

Kurt always saw himself on Broadway. He was in love with the bright lights and the stage, the audience applause. Sebastian wanted to join his father’s law firm. Blaine…Kurt assumed he would pursue music, but as a singer, songwriter, on Broadway, Kurt had no idea.

Kurt figured he would have children someday.

Sebastian did, too.

But Blaine…

“Kurt?” Blaine shook Kurt’s knee gently. “Kurt? Where are you?”

“Uh, what do you mean?” Kurt asked, side-eying Blaine in the passenger seat.

“Well, you missed all your entrances in the last song, and you stopped singing altogether about two minutes ago.”

“Oh,” Kurt said, looking down at the map on his phone screen to see how far they still had to go.

Another forty-five minute drive.

Kurt stifled a groan.

“I guess I’m just a little bit nervous about going to a gay bar, that’s all.”

Blaine smiled, satisfied with Kurt’s half-lie.

“Just relax, sweetie,” Blaine reassured him. “It’ll be fine. You’ll enjoy yourself. You’ll see.”

Kurt let his eyes leave the road for a second to take in the image of Blaine reclining on the seat beside him, arms folded behind his head, staring at Kurt with a strangely devious expression.

Kurt shrugged, fully prepared to listen to Blaine count off all the reasons why Kurt shouldn’t be nervous. After all, that seemed like the sort of thing boyfriends would talk about prior to going to a bar with illegally obtained documentation, but not too surprisingly, they didn’t. The conversation died when Blaine said, “You’ll see.”

Blaine moved on with the playlist, launching into the first verse of _Last Friday Night_ , seamlessly taking over both his and Kurt’s parts since Kurt obviously didn’t feel like contributing to the sing-a-long. Kurt continued the rest of the drive in silence.

He used that time to try and decide where he really saw himself after this night was over.

They pulled into the parking lot of Scandals just as _Defying Gravity_ finished, a song Blaine had queued up in hopes of coaxing Kurt into participating, calling him a spoiled sport when, after the first refrain, Kurt still hadn’t started singing.

“Come on, Kurt,” Blaine whined, “that high F is just waiting for you.”

“Sitting down and in these jeans?” Kurt scoffed. “I don’t think so, Anderson.”

Kurt turned into a parking spot and cut the engine. Blaine undid his seatbelt and reached into his back pocket for his wallet. He opened it up and pulled out Kurt’s new i.d., handing it to him with a slight flourish. Kurt looked dumbfounded at the Hawaii issued driver’s license. A picture of a middle-aged man stared back at him; a head of dark, curly hair almost covering his brown eyes, and a bushy moustache on his upper lip.

“Wha—this is absurd! This picture doesn’t look anything like me!” Kurt protested while secretly doing his best to contain his glee. The picture on Blaine’s license looked equally dissimilar to its supposed owner. Kurt mentally breathed a sigh of relief. There was no way they were getting into a bar with these horrible fakes. They’d have to leave and go back to Dalton with their tails tucked between their legs.

“They’ll work,” Blaine assured him, leaning over and kissing Kurt’s cheek before opening his car door and hopping out of the vehicle. Kurt wasn’t so sure. He was so confident they would be turned away that he nearly skipped behind Blaine all the way to the door. He handed his i.d. over to the bouncer, who immediately rolled his eyes with a ‘you’ve got to be kidding me’ expression. He shined the light of his flashlight down on the driver’s license to get a better look and then shined it up into Kurt’s face.

Kurt, counting the seconds until they were told to leave and don’t come back for another few years, waved his hand with a bright smile on his face and said, “Aloha!”

The rotund man, slouched on his stool, looking defeated by life in general, shifted his gaze from Kurt to Blaine. His dull, green eyes dipped at the outer edges, his face betraying every expression on his exhausted face. From the way his eyes flicked from the i.d.s back to their faces, Kurt could tell he wasn’t fooled one little bit, but he also looked less thrilled to be at Scandals than Kurt was. Whether out of boredom or complete and total apathy, he handed back their i.d.s and waved them on through.

A delighted Blaine shot through the door, dragging a mortified Kurt behind him.

“See, I told you not to worry,” Blaine said.

“Yeah,” Kurt grumbled under his breath. “Great.”

Kurt had never been to a bar before, not to mention a gay specific bar, and as far as he knew, neither had Blaine, so Kurt was confused as to why Blaine seemed at ease there. He nodded at people and waved, winking at one drag queen dressed in a slinky, gold dress a la Ginger from Gilligan’s Island who turned to him and blew him a kiss.

“Friend of yours?” Kurt asked sarcastically. Blaine led him straight for the bar.

“No,” Blaine denied with a chuckle. “I’m just trying to be friendly. You know, work the room.”

“Okay,” Kurt mouthed. He sat himself on a bar stool that didn’t look too grimy and watched Blaine in action.

“A beer for me, and a Long Island Iced Tea for my boyfriend,” Blaine ordered, putting a crisp twenty dollar bill on the bar.

“Since when do you drink beer?” Kurt asked. “And I can’t drink alcohol. I’m driving.”

“Loosen up, Kurt,” Blaine said, sliding the drink across the bar to Kurt when it arrived. “Let’s be spontaneous and fun.”

“I’m all for spontaneous and fun, but not so much for cleaning vomit out of the upholstery of my car.”

Blaine smirked, clinking his beer bottle in cheers against Kurt’s glass and then bringing the bottle to his lips.

Kurt shrugged. A sip couldn’t hurt. It was surprisingly better than he thought it would be, sweet with the hint of a burn on the finish. Kurt sipped slowly to keep from having it hit him all at once.

Blaine pulled Kurt onto the dance floor, laughing and smiling, bouncing around like the goofball he was when he and Kurt first met. It made Kurt smile in spite of himself to watch him, but whether Blaine was acting this way because of the alcohol affecting him or if he enjoyed being out on a date with him, Kurt didn’t know. Kurt still didn’t understand Blaine’s motives for taking him here of all places. It was dark and dingy, the music was too loud, and the whole place smelled like the boy’s locker room at McKinley, eau de dirty sweat socks and the start of black mold. It was the epitome of everything they detested, basically the complete opposite of anywhere they actually enjoyed going.

Wasn’t it?

As the night wore on, the dance floor got more and more crowded until there was barely any room to move without unintentionally rubbing up against someone else. Kurt couldn’t help but think about the things he could be doing if he wasn’t stuck here. He could be reading, or watching a movie, or playing cards…with Sebastian, drinking coffee in the senior commons…with Sebastian, slow dancing in his room…with Sebastian. Kurt sighed, thinking about swaying back and forth in Sebastian’s arms. Nothing about being out on this date with Blaine made Kurt’s decision making any easier. He prayed that some kind of epiphany hit him hard before Blaine went back to the bar for another beer. He was apparently a tremendous lightweight. He claimed to have had only one beer and yet he could barely stand on his feet. When Blaine tripped for the fifteenth time into the bosom of a drag queen named Pearl Bailey, Kurt decided to call it quits. He grabbed his boyfriend by the arm and pulled him to his feet.

“Come on, soldier,” Kurt cooed in a flat, disinterested tone. “Let’s get you home.”

“B-but I don’t want to go yet, Kurt.” Blaine stumbled, falling against Kurt’s shoulder, a goofy smile plastered to his face as he gazed into his boyfriend’s stern eyes. Kurt rolled his eyes and looked away.

“Too bad,” Kurt said, trying to support Blaine as best he could and walk at the same time. “I drove us here and I’m leaving.”

Kurt managed to limp Blaine outside, hoping that the cool night air would help sober him up faster.

“This is the best night of my life,” Blaine rambled.

“Okay,” Kurt humored him, negotiating the curb and almost slipping on the slick asphalt.

“It’s the best night of my life,” Blaine repeated emphatically. “I want to live here. I want to live here, and I just want to make art, and help people.”

Blaine turned toward Kurt as he said the word ‘help’, the elongated ‘h’ propelling a wicked smelling cloud of bad beer breath right under Kurt’s nose.

“Woo-hoo,” Kurt laughed, turning away for a breath of fresher air, “well, you can certainly help people make fires with your breath.”

“Hey, come on,” Blaine argued, “I only had one beer.”

“Sure,” Kurt muttered. Kurt led him straight to his Navigator, fumbling for the fob in his pocket as he propped Blaine’s boneless body up against the car.

Blaine looked at Kurt, that devious expression for earlier in the evening returning to his eyes.

“Kiss me,” Blaine insisted, leaning closer to Kurt, blocking his hand from the car door handle.

“No, no, no,” Kurt laughed uneasily.

Blaine wouldn’t take no for an answer, lips latching onto Kurt’s neck, kissing a line up to his ear.

“Kiss me,” he said again, his voice lowering, an attempt at seduction. Kurt swallowed hard at the thin layer of ice laced over those two simple words.

“No, no, no, no,” Kurt chanted with a giggle, trying to push the frightened butterflies away. “Come on, you’re riding in the back.” Kurt reached the handle and yanked the door open, firmly pushing on Blaine’s shoulder to get him inside.

“Alright, alright,” Blaine relented, the goofy smile back, like the same old Blaine again. Kurt sighed in relief.

“Lay down,” he commanded. “You’re less likely to throw up that way.”

“Alright,” Blaine agreed, but he didn’t lie down. He sat on the bench seat and caught the door before Kurt could close it. Kurt bent down to peer into the car, his eyes meeting Blaine’s darkening stare.

“Would…would you sit next to me for a minute?” Blaine implored in a timid voice. “We haven’t really had a moment alone together since we got here.”

Kurt surveyed the empty parking lot around them. He was eager to end the night, to get in the car and drive the hell out of there. Something about Blaine in this place made Kurt wary, but he couldn’t put a finger on exactly why. Blaine seemed different here. The atmosphere changed him. Or had Blaine changed, slowly, day by day, and Kurt hadn’t noticed? Whatever it was, he didn’t like it. He looked back down at Blaine, still gazing at him with those pleading, puppy dog eyes that could win anyone over, and he sighed.

“Alright,” Kurt said, giving in and sliding onto the seat beside him, “but only for a minute. We still have a long drive back.” Kurt closed the door behind him, and Blaine locked it with the button on his side. The clicking noise made Kurt jump. It seemed to hit him right at the base of the skull, and make all the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

Kurt stared at Blaine, eyebrows raised in expectation of the conversation he claimed he wanted to have. Blaine’s eyes shifted left and right, a little uncomfortable with Kurt’s hard stare.

“What?” Blaine said with a shrug.

“You said you wanted to talk,” Kurt reminded him. “So I’m waiting for you to talk.”

“Yeah, we could talk…” Blaine moved in closer, his eyes focusing on Kurt’s lips for a second before returning to his eyes. “Or, we could make out.” Blaine leaned into Kurt’s neck, searching for that spot he knew made Kurt melt.

Kurt tensed at the first touch of Blaine’s lips against his skin. He tried to relax, tried to enjoy himself, but it wasn’t the same. This didn’t feel right. It felt forced, too fast, and angry if that made any sense. Blaine’s hands started to explore over his shoulders and down his arms, which used to send shivers all over Kurt’s body. Now he didn’t want it. He didn’t know if he just didn’t want it now or ever, but he didn’t want it.

“Blaine…” Kurt tried to find space in the back seat of the Navigator to move away. “Blaine, I’m really tired…”

Kurt heard Blaine huff.

“Blaine, I’m not in the mood…”

Blaine retaliated to Kurt’s objections by sucking hard on his neck. Kurt yelped, shoving Blaine away.

“Blaine!”

“Kurt,” Blaine moaned, pulling Kurt back against him, moving his fingers to the buttons of his shirt. Warning bells went off in Kurt’s head, ringing so loudly that they almost drowned out Blaine’s muttering, his constant string of “I want this. I want you. Please, Kurt…”

Kurt had a hard time deciding whether or not he should be upset or scared. He was too confused, fuzzy even though the Long Island Iced Tea had more than burned off already. Wrapped in his boyfriend’s arms he should feel safe and secure, but for some reason he felt far from that.

Was this what Sebastian had been trying to tell him? How did he know?

“Blaine, no,” Kurt said, trying to squeeze out of Blaine’s hands. “No, I don’t want to do this.”

“Kurt, look,” Blaine said, gripping Kurt’s shoulders, sounding irritated by Kurt’s resistance, “ I know you want to do it in a field of lilacs with Sting playing in the background, but this is about us.” Blaine threw the words back at him from a previous conversation, and it made them sound dirty and condescending. Of course he wanted his first time to be special. It wasn’t stupid or childish or unrealistic. How dare Blaine make it sound that way?

“Yeah, that’s right,” Kurt barked back, shoving Blaine again with all his might, hearing the telltale click of the door locks as his elbow hit the door. “It’s about us. Not you drunk, attacking me in the back seat of a car.” Kurt blew out a breath and ran a hand through his hair while Blaine watched him, lust-blown eyes sparkling. In that moment, Kurt realized it wasn’t actually about them at all. It was about Blaine - what Blaine wanted, what Blaine needed. Kurt still wasn’t entirely sure what he wanted, but it wasn’t necessarily the boy sitting beside him on the bench seat; not the way he was acting now, anyway.

“I should have listened,” Kurt griped, straightening his shirt, redoing the buttons.

“Listened to whom?” Blaine growled. “To Sebastian? Is that who you should have listened to?”

Suddenly the air in the car changed, charged with Blaine’s mounting anger as his patience began to wane. Blaine’s eyes bored into him, and for the first time that Kurt could ever remember while being with Blaine, Kurt felt afraid.

“Why do you talk to him?” Blaine said, crawling back across to seat. “Why do you lead him on?”

“I’m not…I’m not leading him on,” Kurt defended himself, reaching behind his back and feeling around for the door handle.

“Of course you are,” Blaine said. He caught the movement of Kurt’s hand behind his back, snatching his hand away from the door before he could open it. “You study together, you exchange cute little notes, and then there’s that journal…” Blaine pulled Kurt beneath him while Kurt struggled “…that super, secret journal that the two of you get to share.”

Kurt shoved at Blaine again, but this time Blaine was ready, locking both of Kurt’s wrists in his hands and pinning them behind his back, pressing him into the car seat with his body.

“Blaine!” Kurt screeched, lurching up with his body with every ounce of strength he had in him. It seemed to work. Blaine backed off, moving from his body altogether, even leaving the car in his haste.

Kurt shot up in surprise when he heard another voice sneer, “Do you need to have your hearing checked, hobbit? Your man said no!”

Kurt leapt out of the Navigator at the sound of Sebastian’s voice drowning out a string of curses as Blaine struggled to his feet from where he lay sprawled on the asphalt parking lot.

“I thought we talked about this, Smythe,” Blaine barked, wobbling when he stood, wiping a thin stream of blood from a scratch on his cheek with the back of his hand. “Didn’t I tell you to mind your own business?”

Blaine advanced on Sebastian, a left hook aimed deftly at the other boy’s nose, missing by less than a hair when Sebastian jerked back at the last second.

“Yeah, well, I have a problem doing what I’m told.” Sebastian dodged another fist to his face, but this time he swung back, hitting Blaine square on the jaw.

Kurt gasped.

“Stop!” he yelled, stepping forward with his hands raised. “Stop this!”

“No,” Blaine said, shooting a glance Kurt’s way. “No, If Sebastian wants to get his ass beat that badly then I’m more than happy to help him out.”

Blaine came at Sebastian again, and this time his fist hit its mark – a right cross to the jaw, knocking Sebastian back a few steps. He skidded backward, his ankle hitting the curb and he stumbled, threatening to fall over. As soon as Sebastian got his balance, he rushed Blaine, grabbing him around the torso and trying to wrestle him to the ground.

There might have been something hot about two boys fighting over him if it didn’t come with horrible flashbacks of Dave Karofsky hate kissing Kurt in the boys’ locker room, or the fight that ensued after when Sam, Artie, and Mike confronted him and Sam ended up with a black eye. There were too many bad memories for Kurt to deal with, and even though he didn’t want to admit it, he couldn’t handle it.

Did it matter who won?

Was he automatically supposed to ride off into the sunset with the victor?

It seemed so barbaric. Kurt wasn’t an object or a trophy. He was a person, and he wanted to be treated like one. Without looking back at the boys grappling on the ground, Kurt jumped into his Navigator, started the engine, and peeled out of the parking lot. Déjà vu struck as he heard his name called out to him in the distance, but he turned onto the road, merged into traffic, and kept on driving.

Kurt felt himself crumble but he couldn’t afford to fall apart, especially not while he was driving, and he couldn’t risk pulling over because he knew he would turn around and go back. He groped blindly for his phone, pulling up the first number in his contacts and hit dial.

He switched it to speakerphone and heard the sound of the phone ringing in the open air, breathing in deep to calm his frazzled nerves, waiting for the voice of the person he needed most.

“Kurt?”

“Dad?” Kurt choked at the sound of his father’s voice.

“Kurt? Buddy?” his dad mumbled, sleep drunk and perplexed. “Is that you?”

“Dad?” Kurt rushed before tears could steal his voice completely. “I’m in Lima.”

“What’s wrong?” His dad sounded instantly awake. “Are you okay?”

Kurt shook his head.

“Dad,” he said, turning onto the highway. “I don’t want to go back to Dalton.” Kurt heaved, swallowing a sob. “I want to come home.”

 


	168. My New Dream of You - Part 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For all of you who have followed my series that started with 'The Idea of You' - the story of how Kurt found Sebastian's journal in the Dalton library, and have been waiting patiently for an ending, here it is. I hope you like it. If you don't remember it and want to read it over from the beginning, I have it listed as a separate story called 'Because of You' with all seven parts in order. :)

Kurt's father was awake, waiting up for Kurt when he pulled his Navigator into the driveway. Kurt didn't have a chance to sit and mull over the events of the evening alone in the quiet of his car before he had to face his father, and he needed just that. He needed a few minutes to figure out how to keep the world from slipping away underneath his feet before he had to put on a brave face for his dad.

His dad rushed out onto the porch to meet him the second he pulled into the driveway. Kurt took a deep breath and sighed, trying to look confident and impassive…and not at all like he had been crying for the last hour. He took a little extra time locking up his vehicle, grabbing a hold of those precious seconds he would need to steady himself, and then he headed for the house.

Kurt struggled with looking into his father's worried eyes. He felt that with one look his father would somehow know everything – about the bar, about Blaine's attempt to force himself on him…about Sebastian. Kurt held his breath, waiting for the inquiry to start, but there was none. His father took one look at his son and didn't ask him a single question. He pulled Kurt into a bear hug and embraced him, waiting for whatever his son needed to tell him, but Kurt didn't know how.

Burt held his son, and Kurt let himself be held. After a few tense minutes of silence, father and son made an unspoken decision not to discuss it - whatever _it_ was - for tonight.

Burt led Kurt into the house with a hand on his shoulder.

"Why don't you head up to bed, kiddo," his dad suggested, squeezing his shoulder gently. "We can talk about this all in the morning."

A stay of execution.

Kurt would definitely take it.

"Thanks, dad," Kurt said with a grateful nod and headed up the stairs to his room, craving the comfort that the trappings of his pre-Dalton life would offer him. He wanted to forget about it all for a while, and his bedroom – his sanctuary – seemed like the best place to do that.

Kurt thought that falling asleep in his own bed would be as easy as getting into his pajamas, climbing under the covers, and turning out the lights, but it didn't quite work out that way. He lay awake in the darkness with his phone by his pillow, waiting for any word that Sebastian and Blaine hadn't killed each other in that parking lot or ended up in jail. He needed to know that they were okay.

Especially Sebastian.

Kurt had reached the end of his rope with Blaine. Perhaps he had reached it a long time ago but he didn't know how to deal with it so he hid behind second chance after second chance – so many more second chances than Blaine actually deserved.

And apparently Blaine felt that he deserved a few more.

The texts started at 2 a.m., and every single one of them was from Blaine.

_2:00 A.M._

_To: Kurt_

_From: Blaine_

_Where are you? Are you okay? Please call me when you get this. I need to know you're okay._

_2:06 A.M._

_To: Kurt_

_From: Blaine_

_I don't understand what's going on. What did I do wrong? Please, call me back. We can work this out. I promise._

_2:15 A.M._

_To: Kurt_

_From: Blaine_

_Can you please let me know you aren't dead on the side of the road? Can you text me and let me know that so I can go to sleep?_

_Nice, Blaine,_ Kurt thought. _So that_ you _can go to sleep, because heavens knows that you being able to sleep is all that matters._

A couple of minutes after Blaine's last text, Kurt heard the house phone ring. Kurt grabbed his comforter tight and yanked it up over his head. He hadn't told his dad that he didn't want to talk to Blaine or see him, so of course his dad would tell Blaine that Kurt was home and attempt to wake him.

Kurt's dad liked Blaine, and that made Kurt feel even worse about this whole fiasco.

Kurt held his breath and squeezed his eyes shut tight when he heard his dad walk up the stairs to his room.

The knock on the door nearly stopped Kurt's heart.

"Kurt?" Burt called through the door. Kurt didn't answer. A pang of guilt hit his heart hard like a mallet hitting a gong, but Kurt couldn't let his dad know he was awake.

He couldn't talk to Blaine.

Kurt heard the door creak open a crack.

"Kurt?" his father called again into the dark room. "Kurt? It's Blaine on the phone. He wants to talk to you."

Kurt continued to feign sleep while his father watched. To Kurt, pretending to be asleep felt as bad as lying to his father's face. Kurt wasn't completely convinced that he fooled his dad, but a moment later he heard his father speak into the phone.

"I'm sorry, Blaine, but he's already asleep…no, I don't think stopping by in the morning would be the best idea. He's pretty shaken up…no, he didn't tell me what happened. Would you like to?...Yes, I'll give Kurt the message that you called. Good-bye, Blaine."

Kurt heard his dad hang up the phone and Kurt gave himself permission to breathe.

Kurt heard his phone buzz again. His first instinct was to shut the damned thing off and stick it in a drawer for the remainder of the night, but he had a strange feeling (or maybe it was a hope) that this time it wasn't Blaine texting.

Kurt looked at the message alert on the screen.

It was from Sebastian.

Kurt nearly fumbled the phone to the floor with the speed which he grabbed it to read the message.

_2:23 A.M._

_To: Kurt_

_From: Sebastian_

_Just texting to see that you're safe._

Kurt held the phone in his hands, reading the brief message over again. He wanted to send Sebastian a text back, but he wasn't in the mood to talk, as shameful and ungrateful as that sounded. Kurt didn't abide by senseless violence, but apart from the evening ending in a fist fight, Sebastian's intention for driving all the way out to _Scandals_ was to make sure that Kurt was safe.

Sebastian saved Kurt from Blaine.

Not that Kurt _needed_ saving. Kurt was confident he could have defended himself well enough.

But it was nice to know that Sebastian cared.

So, Kurt gave Sebastian what he was willing to give for the moment.

_2:27 A.M._

_To: Sebastian_

_From: Kurt_

_I'm fine. Thank you for everything._

Kurt tried to send the message three times but it wouldn't go through. He decided to try one more time. It finally went through, but another text crossed its path and hit Kurt's phone immediately afterward.

_2:27 A.M._

_To: Kurt_

_From: Sebastian_

_I'll be thinking about you tonight. I wish you were here._

Kurt gasped. He wanted to laugh. He wanted to scream. He wanted to hit something over and over and yell, "It's not fucking fair!"

Kurt had made a decision about all of this on the drive home. It wasn't solidified, wasn't definitive…but it kind of was.

And this last text from Sebastian didn't make going through with his decision any easier.

"I'll kill him," Burt said, pacing the floor of the living room after Kurt told his father what had happened the night before. "I'll beat the crap out of him and bury him under the porch."

"No, dad," Kurt said. "No, it's not worth it."

Kurt wanted to rush to his dad's side and sit him down in his recliner, remind him about his weak heart and how he needed to stay calm, but he couldn't. His father needed to vent, heart condition or no. Burt Hummel was allowed to be angry.

"So, is this asshat the reason why you want to leave Dalton?" his father asked, running a hand over his head for the 90th time in the last half hour.

"Not the entire reason," Kurt contended. His father shot him a skeptical look, but Kurt held his ground. "Not even the biggest reason."

Burt sighed, stopping his pacing and staring down at his feet.

Carole, sitting on the sofa opposite where Kurt sat in an armchair chair, looked from her husband to her stepson.

"Well, shouldn't we go to the police?" she asked, wringing her hands in her lap, caught someplace between indecision and action.

Carole knew going to the police was the right thing to do.

She also knew that she wanted to drive out to Westerville and strangle someone unconscious with her own two hands.

But she maintained her calm for her husband, who had a vein throbbing in his neck so badly that it looked like it wanted to explode.

Kurt bristled at the thought of going to the police. What would the police be able to do? And what about the scuffle between Blaine and Sebastian? If that matter hadn't already been dealt with, would Blaine use it as an excuse to get back at him?

If Kurt went after Blaine, would Blaine go after Sebastian?

"I think that we should," Burt said, somewhat unconvincingly. From the hopeless look on his face, Kurt knew his dad was having some of the same thoughts as he was. What would the police do? Would they take Kurt seriously? Kurt wasn't physically injured and he hadn't been…raped (Kurt supplied in his mind, swallowing hard). Provided that the police department in Ohio wasn't full of bigots, was there anything legally that they _could_ do?

"It's Sunday," Burt said, making the announcement as if it were the start of a plan. "Let's go talk to the police first before we hit Westerville, and if we're not satisfied by what they have to say, I'll…I'll consult a lawyer."

Burt sighed long, dropping down on the couch beside his wife, and Carole wasted no time wrapping her arms around her husband's sagging shoulders.

Kurt sat back in his chair, his eyes glued to his father's careworn face. He didn't mean to cause his dad this much trouble. Maybe he should have gone back to Dalton and kept this to himself, except that ignoring what happened and letting it blow over didn't feel right – not only on the level where it affected Kurt personally, but in a place where he owed it to other future boyfriends of Blaine Anderson to know exactly what that boy had put him through.

Forgetting might be easy, but rarely is the easy thing the right thing to do.

Kurt, Burt, Carole, and Finn all climbed into Kurt's navigator after breakfast and headed to the Lima Police Department. They were met by an Officer Palesko – a man in his mid-forties who was surprisingly sympathetic to Kurt's situation (having a gay son himself). He told Kurt that he was brave for coming forward, that despite anything that anyone might tell him, it was absolutely the right thing to do…

But…

That's when Kurt's heart sank. He had expected it; he hadn't let his hopes get too high.

It still stung, though.

There wasn't much that they could do other than to file a police report about the incident and send an officer out to the school to talk to Blaine. Officer Palesko was nice enough to look up any possible calls into the department from last night/early that morning. No one from the bar reported any incident in the parking lot involving two young men. No 9-1-1 calls had been made with regard to anything going on at _Scandals_ or the general vicinity.

It seemed like the only person concerned about a situation in that part of town was Kurt.

Which made Kurt wonder - how _did_ the fight between Blaine and Sebastian end?

Probably between their dads, Kurt imagined. Blaine's father was the CEO of some company (Kurt could never remember which company or what they made or did – the Andersons didn't seem too fond of Kurt, so he didn't hang out at Blaine's house too often), and Sebastian's dad was a state's attorney. Kurt figured that neither man wanted to see their son behind bars.

Whatever happened between them, it was probably settled 'under the table', as it were.

The officer recommended filing a restraining order if Kurt felt he was in any danger, but Kurt wasn't entirely sure it was worth it. He promised his dad that he would think it over, though Burt was still determined he would be consulting a lawyer the next morning.

It was late afternoon before Kurt and his family traveled to Westerville to pick up Kurt's things. Kurt knew that both Blaine and Sebastian would have left for home like they always did on Sunday, and he was glad. He didn't feel like he owed Blaine an explanation. Not after what he did. But Sebastian deserved better than for Kurt to simply disappear in the night. He wanted to say good-bye to Sebastian in person – he owed him that - but he didn't have the strength to run into either boy right now.

Five minutes away from the dorms, Kurt received a text from Blaine.

_To: Kurt_

_From: Blaine_

_I know you're on your way to Dalton. I canceled dinner with my parents. I need to talk to you when you get here._

Kurt's whole body seized up when he read the message. How the fuck did Blaine know? Kurt told no one. Blaine most likely assumed, and unfortunately he was right.

The Dalton campus was an unusual hive of activity for a Sunday evening when Kurt's father pulled his Navigator onto the grounds. There were a crowd of Warblers gathered by the double doors, waiting to find out why their fellow choir member and friend was about to drop out of Dalton – though most of them already knew.

This wasn't something that was going to be easy to sweep away.

Almost immediately Kurt saw Blaine break away from the crowd and rush his car. Kurt tried not to make eye contact with him, but from the corner of his eye Kurt could see the black bruise swelling his left eye shut, the cut on his cheek, and his upper lip split in two places.

 _Christ_! Kurt thought. When Kurt had left, the two had only gotten a few hits in. Kurt wondered what Sebastian looked like in comparison. He hoped that Sebastian had fared better.

"Kurt," Blaine called out, trying to see him through the open window, craning to look past Finn's upper body. "Kurt! I'm so glad you're okay. Why didn't you call me when you got home? I was so worried about you."

"Not now, dude," Finn said, moving his body to block Blaine's view of Kurt and fixing Blaine with the most intimidating glare he could muster. "Kurt doesn't want to talk to you."

Blaine looked comically shocked by Finn's reluctance to help him talk to Kurt. He stood with his one good eye open wide as Burt parked Kurt's SUV in front of the dorms.

"Kurt," Blaine continued, not swayed by Finn's warning. "I don't understand. What's going on?"

Burt stepped out from the vehicle, moving in front of Kurt's window to confront Blaine when the boy came around to the driver's side of the Navigator.

"I think it would be best if you went inside, Blaine, and left Kurt alone," Burt said. Blaine opened his mouth to object, but when he saw Burt's jaw locked and his hands balled into fists at his sides, Blaine closed his mouth. He took a step back, but he wouldn't leave.

Burt glared down at Blaine. Blaine stared pleadingly back, and Kurt knew he would have to intervene, but he was saved by the quite wisdom of Jeff Sterling.

"Come on, man," Jeff said, putting a hand on Blaine's shoulder and tugging him away gently. "Just go inside. Let him go."

Blaine's eyes shifted to the right of Burt's body, catching a sliver of space where he could stare straight into Kurt's eyes, but Kurt turned away. He couldn't look at Blaine. This wasn't his Blaine. The boy he thought was perfect, the boy he thought he could fall in love with, either disappeared months ago…or he never existed.

Either way, the Blaine Anderson chapter of Kurt's life was over.

Blaine let Jeff pull him away, shaking his head in disbelief, muttering something to Jeff that Kurt couldn't hear.

"I know," Jeff said with a sigh, turning back to the Navigator and giving Kurt a tiny wave and a fond smile.

Kurt raised a hand and waved back.

Kurt would miss Jeff.

He would miss Nick, and Trent, and Thad, and Wes, and all of the Warblers.

Mostly, Kurt would miss…

"Sebastian?" Kurt lifted his eyes at the sound of Hunter calling Sebastian's name. There he was, standing in the spot that Blaine had vacated, sad green eyes staring at Kurt. His right eye was swollen – not to the extent that Blaine's was, but still the skin looked puffy and marked by a shiny indigo bruise. He had what looked like road rash on his chin and his lip was also split, but in one spot instead of two.

"Do you want me to get rid of this one, too?" Kurt's father asked, turning over his shoulder but keeping an eye on Sebastian as he spoke to his son.

"No," Kurt said, unlocking and opening the door. "No, _him_ I want to talk to."

"Alright." His dad stepped aside so Kurt could get out. "I'm going to go talk to the dean while Carole and Finn go get your stuff. Are you going to be okay out here alone?"

Kurt's eyes met Sebastian's gaze, and Kurt smiled.

"Yeah, dad," he said. "I'm going to be fine."

Burt watched his son walk up to the strange boy, waiting a moment to be sure he would be okay, before he turned and followed his wife into the dorms.

Sebastian watched Kurt walk up to him with guarded eyes, his mouth set in a firm line.

"Hey," Kurt said, not sure where to start.

"You're leaving." It wasn't a question. Sebastian knew. His words sounded dry and defeated.

It matched the way he felt.

"Yeah." All of a sudden Kurt wished there was another way.

"So, I wanted you to choose between him and me, and you chose neither," Sebastian said bitterly, lifting his head past Kurt's gaze to look off into the distance.

"No," Kurt said, shaking his head. "I chose _me_."

For many different reasons Kurt had been teetering on the edge of this decision for a while now, but Blaine and the fight was the catalyst that tipped him over the edge. Kurt loved Dalton. He really did. The classes were harder, but the kids were nicer. There was no denying the school had other perks as well. Kurt looked up to see the biggest one standing in front of him with downcast eyes. But from the first day he put on that Dalton blazer, little by little, Kurt had begun to feel his individuality slip away.

Kurt was drowning there. He needed to break away from the safety net. He needed to stop hiding.

"This isn't about you, Seb…" Kurt reached out a hand and carefully put it to Sebastian's cheek, "and believe it or not, it's not about Blaine either. _"_ Kurt shook his head. "I'm sorry, but I have to go somewhere where I can concentrate on _me_ for a while."

Sebastian nodded.

"I understand," he said, backing away, each step tearing pieces from Kurt's heart.

Kurt couldn't let him go yet. He had a few minutes left here at Dalton and he knew how he wanted to spend them.

Kurt stepped forward and wrapped his arms around Sebastian's waist. Sebastian stopped walking. He groaned, his voice thick like he was about to cry. He struggled a bit, but Kurt held on tight, and eventually Sebastian gave in and melted around him.

Sebastian held Kurt so tightly that his arms trembled. He pressed kisses in Kurt's hair and whispered things Kurt couldn't hear, but then again, maybe Sebastian didn't want him to. Burt and Finn shot them confused looks as they walked out to the Navigator with Kurt's things, and when Carole saw them together, she sighed.

After the last of Kurt's things were safely stowed into the trunk, Burt waited as long as he could before he broke up the pair.

"Kurt," he said, clearing his throat, "we have to go."

"Yeah," Kurt called back, nodding against Sebastian's chest. "I know. I'll be right there."

Sebastian took Kurt's hands in his and looked into Kurt's face, his eyes soaking in every detail. Kurt thought Sebastian was going to kiss him. He was completely prepared to be kissed…and Sebastian did. He lifted Kurt's hands to his face and kissed across his knuckles – one hand, then the other. While he did, he pressed a square piece of paper in the palm of Kurt's hand.

"Uh…I wrote this when I got back this morning," Sebastian confessed. "I didn't really know what to say. I didn't know if you would ever talk to me again. I didn't know you would be leaving, but it doesn't matter. I mean every word of it, so please…consider it." He placed one last kiss to the back of Kurt's hand and whispered, "Two hours away isn't all that far."

Kurt's lips twitched, holding back a sob. He reached up to touch Sebastian's face again but this time Sebastian dropped Kurt's hands and walked away, not willing to indulge in this pain any longer.

Kurt watched him go. Sebastian didn't head back to the dorms. He walked around the corner of the building and disappeared from sight. Kurt felt a hand on his shoulder; this time it was Carole.

"Come on, sweetie," she said. "Did you want to go give your room a once over?"

"No," Kurt said.

"Then, it's time we got going."

Carole held Kurt's arm as he turned and walked back to the Navigator. He climbed into the back seat and shut the door. Holding the note in his hand, he rested his head against the window and shut his eyes. He didn't fall asleep. He just didn't want to talk to anyone on the ride home. He didn't want his family to ask questions he didn't have the answers to.

Back in Lima, they unloaded Kurt's things from his SUV and carried them to his room. Kurt spent a few hours before bedtime gearing up to start over again at McKinley High.

"It'll be great," Finn reassured him before turning in for the night. "Everyone misses you. It'll be great to have to whole group back together again."

Kurt wanted to agree, and earlier that morning he would have, but now it didn't feel the same. He didn't say that to Finn. He thanked Finn and wished him good-night, plastering a tired smile on his face to appease his stepbrother.

Kurt waited until he climbed into bed before he opened Sebastian's letter and read it.

_Dear Kurt –_

_I want to say I'm sorry. God, I owe you so many of those, I think that's how I should start all of our conversations from now on until I catch up. "Hello, Kurt. How have you been? By the way, I'm sorry. Did you get the answer to question 19?"_

_I'm sorry for how I've treated you. I'm sorry for all the awful things I said. I don't really have an explanation other than I'm kind of an ass and I don't know how to deal with these things called 'feelings'. I've never really had to before._

_But there are some things I'll admit I'm not sorry for._

_I'm not sorry you found my journal._

_I'm not sorry that I finally got to tell you how I feel._

_And no matter what I might have said to the contrary, I'll never be sorry that I met you._

_I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, but I'll be honest and say that I hope you dump Blaine. If you do, please consider me as an alternative._

_I would consider it an honor to take you out for coffee sometime._

_Sincerely;_

_Sebastian Smythe_

Kurt spent an hour rereading Sebastian's letter. It was a good thing he didn't read it at Dalton. Those words might have had the power to break him.

Kurt folded the letter carefully and tucked it under his pillow. He turned off his phone and put it in the drawer to his bedside dresser. He emptied his head and dreamt of nothing. He let the kisses on his hands turn into scars, like all of the other kisses Sebastian had given him.

The only thing that kept him from crying himself to sleep was the last thing Sebastian said – _"Two hours away isn't all that far."_

_***_

Kurt thought the halls of McKinley would feel like home to him again, like being welcomed back by an old friend, and to a degree it did. He slipped into his own comfortable and fashionable armor of retro McQueen and Vivienne Westwood, and prowled the halls with his head held high, knowing that nothing McKinley could throw at him could break him.

Yes, McKinley was familiar, from the sound of his shoes clicking down the linoleum floors in the halls to the smell of new sheet music in the choir room.

But Dalton had a claim on his heart that no other place had, and the more Kurt thought about it, the more he felt out of place again.

It had been two weeks since Kurt had left Dalton and he hadn't heard from Sebastian. Blaine texted him from time to time. At first, he begged him to come back, that he was sorry, that he would change, that he would be better. He recorded songs and left them on Kurt's voice mail. But over time Blaine must have realized that same-old same-old wasn't working, but instead of changing his tactics, he gave up.

That was fine by Kurt. At this point, he didn't care if he never heard from Blaine again.

Kurt had returned to McKinley in time to join the Glee Club on their way to Nationals, and he had a lot of catching up to do. Throwing himself into practicing was a good way to keep his mind off of…well, off of other things. He showed up to school early every morning to use the piano in the choir room – and to generally get away from prying eyes and ears.

If there was one thing he missed about Dalton, it was the independence. In the comfort of his own room, he answered to no one, and even though he enjoyed being surrounded by family again, there was something to be said about nursing a broken heart alone.

It was on a Thursday morning when Kurt arrived to school early to practice that remnants of his old life started to invade on his rehabilitated one. As he turned the corner to the row of lockers in the hall in front of the choir room, Kurt saw a flash of Dalton blue. His heart skipped in his chest. He sped down the hallway, but whoever was sporting that familiar blazer had already gone. Kurt peeked out the doors to the parking lot, but saw no one - only a few other early morning McKinley students. No one in a uniform. No one even wearing a similar shade of blue.

"Se-Sebastian?" Kurt called out, just in case, but nobody answered.

Kurt walked back to his locker, hoping he was right, wishing for a new note, but when he dialed in the combination and pulled opened the red metal door, he frowned.

Standing wedged between his French book and his AP Calculus book were two perfect roses – one yellow, one red.

Exactly like all the ones Blaine had given him so many times before.

 _Blaine_.

 _It can't be_ , he thought. Kurt glowered at the roses. He loathed them. He didn't want to touch them. He pulled his French textbook out far enough to tip the roses out of the locker and onto the floor. Then he stomped on them, twisting his foot to annihilate the petals.

Then he stormed away.

That evening, Kurt told his father that he wanted to file for a restraining order.

After that, days passed with no roses and no phantom blazers racing down the hall, but it also came with no texts from Sebastian. His heart sank. Kurt knew that Sebastian had put the ball into his court, but he was hoping for a little something extra. Maybe it was unfair to want it, but he did.

He was hoping for a sign.

With Nationals a week away, all thoughts of notes and roses were forced to the side as Kurt tried to remember in which direction he was supposed to sway behind Rachel Berry in the background when it happened.

Kurt caught him, and it was unexpected for both of them.

There he stood, with his hand inside Kurt's locker, and his jaw dropped, his lips forming a ridiculous 'o' shape as he froze in his spot.

Kurt could feel his insides boil as he advanced with heavy footsteps, yelling from halfway down the hall.

"So, it was you!" Kurt yelled accusingly, tearing the door to his locker out of the Dalton boy's hand. "You put the roses in my locker?"

"Yeah," Sebastian said sheepishly, looking down at his shoes. "Yeah, I did."

Kurt scoffed, and Sebastian's eyes narrowed on him, his sheepish gaze turning into a glare.

"You don't have to be so fucking angry about it!"

"No," Kurt said quickly, trying to explain without sounding annoyed, "it's not that. It's…Blaine…always gave me red and yellow roses."

"I know," Sebastian admitted. "That's how I got the idea. I thought they were your favorite."

Kurt bit his lip at Sebastian's deduction, deciding not to mention that the last ones Sebastian gave him had been stomped into mulch.

"Sterlings are my favorite, actually," Kurt said. He reached past Sebastian to grab the twin roses, bringing them up to his nose and giving them a sniff.

Sebastian smirked.

"Of course they are," Sebastian said. "They're only the most difficult frickin' rose to get in butt-fuck Ohio."

"Are you saying I'm not worth it?" Kurt sneered.

"No." Sebastian shook his head with a sincere expression. "You're worth it. You're definitely worth it."

Kurt sighed into the flowers beneath his nose, looking down into their red and yellow petals.

"You haven't texted me," Kurt said. "I thought…I thought after everything you said…"

"Well, you didn't text me either," Sebastian interrupted. "I waited for anything. Any word from you…"

"I know, and I'm sorry. I really am."

Kurt sighed and looked around them, as if only now remembering that they were standing together in a hallway at McKinley and not at Dalton. "Why are you here?"

Sebastian shrugged.

"I remember what Blaine said used to happen to you at this school, and I feel kind of guilty…" Sebastian ran a hand through his hair. "Like, despite what you said, _I'm_ the reason why you're back here; that I pushed you out of Dalton."

Kurt smiled at the sound of Sebastian's discomfort.

"Aww, the tin man has a heart after all," Kurt teased.

"What heart?" Sebastian replied, pretending to look offended. Kurt rolled his eyes and Sebastian laughed. "Okay, well maybe it was killing me…the idea of people fucking with you," Sebastian confessed, "people other than me, that is."

"I knew it," Kurt said, leaning with his back against the locker and staring up at the ceiling.

Sebastian looked at Kurt, running his eyes down Kurt's profile, biting his lip at the handsome figure he cut in his stylish clothes – not confined by a stupid uniform.

"So, if we started dating, would that be your nickname for me? Tin man?" Sebastian asked, his lips curling up in that enticing smirk Kurt used to abhor. Kurt wondered how Sebastian would react if he leaned in and kissed it off his face.

"Do you hate it?" Kurt asked, scrunching his nose.

Sebastian chuckled.

"No," he said. "Actually, I kind of like it."

"Good to know," Kurt said, reaching out a hand and shutting his locker door. "So, _tin man_ , would you like to go grab a cup of coffee with me?"

Sebastian looked around them, at the relatively empty hallways and the closed classroom doors.

"What, you mean now?" he asked.

Kurt nodded.

"Why not? Even if you leave now, you're still going to be late for school, so what do you have to lose?"

"Well, aren't _you_ supposed to be in class right now?" Sebastian countered.

"Pfft." Kurt waved a hand in front of his face. "I go to public school. We're all a bunch of rule breakers and miscreants here. No one will miss me."

Sebastian raised an eyebrow. Kurt tried his hardest to keep a straight face, but he broke.

"I have P.E. first period," Kurt said. "I couldn't care less if I missed it."

Sebastian shook his head.

"Well, then," he said, "let us away."

Sebastian offered his arm to Kurt, and Kurt took it, resting his hand on Sebastian's bicep, enjoying the feeling of holding onto him this way. They walked down the hallway together, the sparse students lingering by their lockers eying them as they headed toward the exit.

"Oh." Sebastian stopped when they had walked through the double doors. "There's one more thing."

He turned Kurt to face him. He crooked a finger beneath Kurt's chin, tipping his head up, and kissed him – kissed him the way he had been dreaming of kissing Kurt since he wrote the first words in that stupid journal.

The journal that was currently hiding - with all of its confessions and poems, with new additions stuck to the pages - inside Kurt's messenger bag.

Kurt felt Sebastian wrap an arm around his waist. Sebastian ran his fingertips lightly over the small of Kurt's back. When Sebastian sucked Kurt's lower lip into his mouth, he moaned.

This was the kiss Kurt had been hoping for the night he left Dalton.

He didn't want it to end, and when Sebastian began to move away, Kurt whimpered.

"Are we at that point yet?" Kurt asked, sighing against Sebastian's lips.

"Mmm, maybe not yet," Sebastian said. "So, maybe we save that one for later, and this one's for now."

Sebastian kissed Kurt again, and Kurt kissed him back.

A first kiss of many.


	169. Love, Blood, and Demon Nature

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the Kurtbastian Hiatus Project ‘soulmate AU’. I love the idea that soulmates can cross borders, that not every human has a human soulmate. In this story, Sebastian is a seraph. Warning for bondage, minor blood, and minor burns.
> 
> This story has about three chapters posted here. However, this is its own fic with a final chapter posted. You can find it under my works under 'Love, Blood, and Demon Nature'. :)

Kurt slumps in on himself as his strength begins to give out, the shackles around his wrists pulling tight with the weight of his body as it sags, chains rattling as his knees bend and try to reach the floor. Kurt knows _he_ is watching, his eyes fixed on Kurt’s every move, but Kurt won’t give the demon the satisfaction of surrendering.

Kurt is not weak.

“Just say the words and I’ll let you out of the chains, my precious,” Sebastian purrs, running his serpentine tongue over the back of Kurt’s neck, lapping up beads of sweat like they’re the sweetest wine, leaving a searing string of acid behind. “Say that you won’t run away again.”

Kurt throws his head back when another swipe of Sebastian’s tongue burns his already scarred skin.

“I have no reason to stay,” Kurt says boldly, knowing he will only further incur the seraph’s wrath.

“Yes, you do,” Sebastian hisses, running one long, exceedingly sharp nail down Kurt’s bare back, slicing through the skin cleanly, leaving a narrow river of blood in its wake. “ _I_ am your reason to stay.”

“You?” Kurt laughs, his voice weak but his tone wicked. “What the fuck would I want with a wretched, disgusting thing like you? I can’t take you to dinner at The Four Seasons. I can’t be seen with you during Fashion Week. You are _nothing_ to me. Why don’t you stop being so fucking pathetic and let me go?”

The seraph roars into the air, opening his leathery wings and beating them once in frustration at the puny human that dares defy him. If Kurt were anyone else, any other weak, spineless sack of blood and meat, Sebastian would simply tear him to shreds, slowly savoring his screams of agony, his whimpers, his begging…but he can’t.

Kurt isn’t just any useless human.

Kurt, as bizarre as fate may have it, is the one being made for Sebastian – the one who can make Sebastian whole.

“ _I_ am your soulmate,” Sebastian says matter-of-factly, leaving no room for argument. “You are the one who has brought back the color to my life. You are the one I’ve spent all these long years searching for.”

“Well, the colors haven’t returned to _my_ life,” Kurt argues, sucking a breath through his teeth when Sebastian runs another nail down his back, leaving another thin river of blood behind. “I think you’ve got the wrong person. So let me go.”

Sebastian beats his wings again, whipping the wind around Kurt with the fury of a hurricane. A wall of air hits Kurt full force and succeeds in bringing him to his knees. Kurt cries out in pain…but not entirely pain, which Sebastian would see for himself if he were looking into Kurt’s blown eyes – large void pupils pushing away the last remnants of his ice blue irises.

“You will not leave until you tell me you love me,” Sebastian growls, disgusted with himself for needing this human so badly, for desiring him, for wanting to wrap Kurt up in his wings and hold him close…to beg Kurt for the pleasure that Sebastian has denied himself for centuries.

“Fuck you,” Kurt says, a blended snarl of grunts and grinding teeth, a sign for Sebastian that the beast may have managed to get Kurt to kneel, but that didn’t mean he was going to give in.

Sebastian lunges forward and wraps a hand around Kurt’s neck, digging the tips of long nails into pliant, white skin, almost losing his temper and slicing too deep, but an edge of sharp pain stabs Sebastian through what was once a stagnant heart – a heart that had begun to beat once again – and Sebastian recoils. He cannot bring harm to his soulmate. That would result in a pain even Sebastian would never be able to inflict…or recover from.

“I can wait,” Sebastian says as he retracts his claws and prepares to leave. “I am a patient demon. I can wait.”

Sebastian backs out of the room, taking one last look at Kurt kneeling on the dusty wooden floor. Sebastian’s heart aches with how he longs for Kurt to accept him. If Kurt gave him any indication – one smile, one word of affection, one kiss - then he would unchain Kurt, lift him up from these shackles and treat him like the prince he is.

But that day is not this day, and Sebastian storms away to unleash his anger elsewhere.

Kurt hears the monster’s feet retreat into the darkness and smiles. Everything is going exactly the way he foresaw it. All those nights he spent dreaming of _the one_. All those daydreams that occupied his mind so vividly that he couldn’t concentrate on anything except him – the creature with the gem-like green irises surrounding glowing red pupils, scaled skin, and that voice – a gravelly combination of death and menace with a soothing undertone of velvet. The moment he walked into Kurt’s life, every color of the rainbow had blossomed in his mind, and a few others he could have never imagined as well.

Kurt tries to rise, but he falls back to his knees. He thinks about the cuts along his back, Sebastian’s tongue on his skin, his hand around his neck, and he smiles.

Yes, Sebastian definitely is Kurt’s soulmate.

That doesn’t mean that Kurt has to make things easy on him.


	170. Giving in to Demon Nature

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the second part following 'Love, Blood, and Demon Nature', the soulmate AU I wrote for the Kurtbastian Hiatus Project. There will be one more part after this. Warning for bondage, imprisonment, mention of blood and mentions of sex.

Kurt moans into the mouth that aggressively and hungrily claims his. He surrenders to the searing serpent’s tongue gliding over his lips. He throws his head back, giving his lover more space to make his marks.

Sebastian carefully nibbles along the line of Kurt’s neck, but as gentle as he is, he still manages to nip the pale skin, leaving thin rivers of blood behind. Kurt doesn’t mind. He longs for the sharp sting of his lover’s fangs. They awaken all of his senses, tingles chasing each other along the surface of his skin, making his hair stand on end while inside his body, his blood, his muscles, and his bones ignite. They act like rods, attracting forks of electricity. Kurt moans louder when a more intentional bite breaks his skin and Sebastian actually sucks at the blood there.

“ _Oh my_ …” Kurt breathes, becoming limp in Sebastian’s arms as the demon cradles Kurt to his chest.

“That’s it,” Sebastian hisses, his tongue flicking out to lick at the hollow of his neck, “just relax and let me take care of everything.”

Sebastian slices through the buttons of Kurt’s shirt one by one with his long, knife-like nails.

“Sebastian!” Kurt gasps, “This shirt is Marc Jacobs!”

Sebastian’s red pupils glow bright and his lips twist in amusement.

“And does that matter to you?”

Kurt’s return smile is equally amused and wicked.

“Not in the slightest.”

Sebastian’s black lips twist into a cruel, demonic smile. He treats Kurt’s jeans the same way, slicing the fabric from his body, not even bothering to try and peel the skin-tight denim from Kurt’s legs. Kurt watches the decimation of his expensive jeans with open-mouthed mortification.

“Motherfucker!” he exclaims, and Sebastian laughs. “You’re just lucky I love you or I’d bitch slap that grin right off your face.”

“You’re just lucky that _I_ love _you_ ,” Sebastian returns, “or I would have burned those jeans right off of your skin.”

Kurt is set to be furious again, but then Sebastian continues.

“Your beautiful…soft…pale…delicate skin…”

Sebastian runs his hands down Kurt’s stomach, resting his palm on Kurt’s flushed and exposed erection. He stares, eyes wide with wonder and a surprising innocence that takes Kurt’s breath away. Sebastian licks his lips, his tongue stuttering over his scaly skin.

“It’s about time we finally got this started,” Sebastian says, moving down Kurt’s body to finally sink his mouth over his prize.

Kurt gasps at the first touch of the demon’s lips to his skin, the sizzling sound alarming, but Sebastian’s heat arouses Kurt.

Kurt sighs and his entire body shudders.

He rolls his wrists in the shackles that still hold him. He opens his eyes and peers into the darkness – the lonely, mind-numbing darkness. He blinks his eyes and lets the daydream dissolve away, sliding off his body like a wave.

He is chained and he is alone, and all that is left of that incredible dream is an ache everywhere in his body…especially in his heart.

Six whole days locked up.

Six whole days a prisoner of the seraph he’s joined to.

Six whole days without consummating this bond with his soulmate, and Kurt feels like he’s dying.

Kurt borders on the brink of madness. He can’t handle it anymore. This imprisonment, allowing himself to be trapped and chained, had started out as a joke, a way to push Sebastian’s buttons, to make him want Kurt more, but it had long begun to backfire. Kurt _needs_ Sebastian. More and more, every minute of every day, this biding tears Kurt to pieces. The dreams come one after the other, every one of them a repercussion of his staving off the inevitable, each one geared toward forcing him to succumb, and nature hasn’t been kind. Each new dream is hotter, more taboo than the last, with Sebastian doing erotic and unspeakable things to Kurt – kissing him in places he never dreamed of being kissed, touching him so carefully, so tenderly - over and over, keeping his body on the edge of arousal without allowing him any release.

“Fuck,” Kurt groans, his legs shaking beneath his body weight as he struggles to stand, his sanity hanging on by a razor’s edge. “Where the fuck is he?”

Kurt imagines that Sebastian has to be having the dreams, too - that he has to be driving down the slow road to insanity side-by-side with him now, or maybe demons have a larger capacity for patience than mere humans do.

That question is answered for him when Sebastian storms in, ripping the door to the attic off its hinges and flinging it across the room.

“That is it!” the demon roars, and for the first time since he’s been locked away, Kurt flinches at Sebastian’s anger, but not because he’s scared. Having been away from the noise and the light of the big city for nearly a week, his body seems to be going through some crazy withdrawals. Loud noises resonate through his head like aftershocks, and he feels like he is being repeatedly slapped in the face. “Today is the day, Hummel! You have to decide…”

“I want to be with you,” Kurt admits quietly, his voice hoarse and scratchy.

“…if you are going to…wait…” Sebastian stops short, startled. “What did you say?”

Unable to believe his ears, Sebastian pulls up in front of Kurt and lifts Kurt’s head roughly by the chin. Kurt allows himself to be manipulated, finding it too difficult to raise his own head from where it hangs down between his shoulders and having no more energy to fight.

“I want to be with you, Sebastian,” Kurt repeatts through cracked lips. “Since the first day I met you…since the moment you walked into my office and all the color returned to my life…”

“So you did see the colors!” Sebastian crows triumphantly. Kurt frowns, his exhausted face somehow managing to look condescending.

“Of course I saw the colors, you schmuck!” Kurt snaps. “You know, for a demon of vengeance and justice, you sure are dense.”

Because of Sebastian’s bitter nature, he is tempted to leave Kurt there alone for one more day, to simper and suffer, but he can’t. This is as close to happy as he has ever felt. It is an addictive feeling now that he has it, warm and growing bigger in his chest over his newly beating heart.

“Does this mean you won’t try to run away from me again?” Sebastian asks, sounding less like a ferocious demon and more like a man – a man with doubts and needs and fears of rejection.

Kurt smiles a weak but sincere smile.

“Untie me, Sebastian,” Kurt commands kindly. “I won’t run. I never had any intention of leaving you, really. I just wanted you to mark me as your own.”

Sebastian’s eyes narrow as he considers Kurt’s confession.

“But that would have meant forcing myself on you,” Sebastian reasons with a look of confusion on his face. “The way you constantly defied me, you wouldn’t have given in willingly.”

“And yet you didn’t even try,” Kurt says drily and with a slight edge of disappointment. “How extremely chivalrous of you.”

“Don’t,” Sebastian says, a hint of embarrassment coloring his sharp tone. “I was just beginning to not completely despise myself for wanting to be with you.” Sebastian’s eyes drift to the shackles and chains, their red depths showing a bit of regret. “I didn’t want to make you do something you didn’t want to do. It would have been…a last resort.”

Kurt watches how carefully Sebastian undoes the cuffs around his wrists, how he barely brushes his bruised skin with his deadly nails.

“Do you really love me?” Kurt asks offhandedly. Sebastian catches Kurt in his arms when he releases the last cuff. Kurt relaxes into Sebastian’s embrace and rubs his wrists, trying to coax the blood back to his starved appendages. “I mean, I know what all this soulmate mumbo-jumbo is supposed to mean, but demons don’t love, do they? You can’t defy your nature.”

Sebastian looks down at the human cradled in his arms, the red in his glowing pupils dimming, and Kurt can tell this is a subject Sebastian himself has considered numerous times.

“ _Can_ you love?”

Sebastian’s eyes travel down Kurt’s body, examining his ruined clothes and his bruised skin.

“I don’t understand it myself,” Sebastian says, “and in some ways, I don’t like it, but yes…I love you, Kurt.”

“And, you’re okay with that?” Kurt looks up at the seraph through long, chestnut lashes, his chest heaving with the effort to breathe without his arms being pulled apart.

Sebastian takes one nail and starts separating the seams of Kurt’s clothes, peeling the garments in sections from Kurt’s skin.

“I am because it’s you,” Sebastian says, his lips quivering to form a smile that isn’t also part smirk or snarl. “I am because you’re mine.”

Kurt nods thoughtfully, and the expression on Sebastian’s face changes.

“What about you?” he asks without any confidence. “Are you okay with…” He stops, looking down the length of his own body, from the skin that changes without a thought from smooth human skin to hard, stone-like scales to the leather wings that move on their own, wrapping around Kurt in an effort to keep him warm as Sebastian undresses him. “You said you couldn’t take me to The Four Seasons, or to Fashion Week. I know what your fancy New York life is like…”

“We’re just going to have to make some adjustments,” Kurt interrupts, “make some compromises.”

“Like…”

“Like you can change forms,” Kurt explains, speaking slow as if he’s talking to a child, “that’s how you got into my office in the first place. Can’t you do that so we can go out together once in a while?”

Kurt sees by the look on Sebastian’s face that he’s struck some kind of nerve.

“I suppose…” he says. Kurt can feel the body holding him transform, become softer, shorter, arms a little weaker, and the wings wrapped around him shrinking and then disappearing completely, leaving Kurt cold.

Kurt looks up at his lover’s face. Sebastian the human is milder, kinder even though he’s kept his cocky sneer, the green of his eyes more prominent with the absence of glowing red pupils. Kurt smiles up at the unexpectedly handsome man.

“There you go. You know, you make a pretty hot human,” Kurt comments.

The insecure smile on Sebastian’s face freezes on his lips, and then begins to dip at the edges.

“I…can be this for you, if that’s what you want,” Sebastian says, raising human fingers with perfectly manicured nails to brush the dirty bangs from Kurt’s eyes.

Kurt hadn’t expected that as a response to his comment. Not in a million years would Kurt have guessed that Sebastian – the proud seraph demon he is – would be willing to change in that way for him. He re-assesses Sebastian – this weak, frail, _human_ Sebastian – with abject horror on his face.

“Is this you?” Kurt asks sarcastically. He knows the answer, and to be honest, Kurt is offended that Sebastian would think so little of him.

“Of course not,” Sebastian says, returning Kurt’s horrified sneer.

“Then I don’t want it,” Kurt says. “I want you…the way you are…the way I’ve seen you in my dreams my entire life. Just you.”

Sebastian shakes his head.

“I thought that, maybe, being with me like this would be easier for you…”

Kurt sees the way Sebastian’s lips twist around unspoken words. He knows what Sebastian really means to say.

He thinks being with him as a human would be more palatable for Kurt.

Less scary.

Less disgusting.

Before meeting Sebastian officially, Kurt had had plenty of chances to be with other men. Some people sought out the affections of other unmatched people while they waited for their soulmates to come into their lives, and Kurt had his share of propositions, but he wouldn’t allow himself to be touched by another man. It didn’t seem right. It felt like cheating.

There was a boy Kurt met in high school that he had been attracted to. At the time, Kurt was a young, starry-eyed teenager, with a mind full of romance that battled against his dreams of who his soulmate truly was. Kurt had sometimes daydreamed that _this_ boy was his soulmate in disguise. The boy had flirted relentlessly with Kurt, and even went so far as to touch Kurt’s hand.

It was that touch of his fingertips that cemented reality into Kurt’s mind. It shifted everything that he believed into what he knew without a shadow of a doubt.

This boy’s hand on his felt cold, weak, apologetic in comparison to even his most distant dream of his soulmate – who stood so strong, so powerful, so overwhelming in beauty and brilliance in Kurt’s eyes – that he pulled his hand away and never spoke to the boy again.

“ _You_ are my soulmate,” Kurt says with the same strength of conviction that he had felt when he walked away from that boy who had dared to touch his hand, “and that means that everything you are fits perfectly with everything I am. There is nothing about you I would change.”

Kurt feels Sebastian move again, his arms becoming longer and stronger, his chest becoming broader, his skin darker and harder as scales bloom and ripple down his skin. His blackened lips twist in his own version of a smile.

“And there’s nothing about you that I would change,” he says, and though it falls somewhere between a growl and a snarl, the words are music to Kurt’s ears. Sebastian stares at Kurt, and Kurt stares back, his face growing hot with the realization of what comes next – of what _has_ to happen soon before Kurt explodes, starting with his atoms and molecules, working through to his cells, causing a chain reaction that would eliminate his presence from the planet completely, not leaving a speck behind.

Sebastian reads him perfectly – the blush on his cheeks, the speed of his breaths in and out, the frantic hum of his heartbeat.

“So where would you like this to happen?” Sebastian asks, opening up his wings and shaking them out against the wind. “Where do you imagine your first time? I’ll take you anywhere – Paris, Rome, a field of lilacs or a snowy mountaintop. Just pick the place, and we’ll be there in seconds.”

“How about you just take me home,” Kurt suggests, raising a hand and running it down Sebastian’s cheek, smiling when Sebastian turns to place a scorching kiss to his palm. “ _Our_ home. And we can start there.”


	171. Less a Demon, Not Quite Human

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This is the third part in my Demon!Soulmates AU that started with 'Love, Blood, and Demon Nature' and continued with 'Giving in to Demon Nature'. Warning for sex, blood, scratching and biting, but nothing gory, I promise.

_“So where would you like this to happen?” Sebastian asks, opening up his wings and shaking them out against the wind. “Where do you imagine your first time? I’ll take you anywhere – Paris, Rome, a field of lilacs or a snowy mountaintop. Just pick the place, and we’ll be there in seconds.”_

_“How about you just take me home,” Kurt suggests, raising a hand and running it down Sebastian’s cheek, smiling when Sebastian turns to place a scorching kiss to his palm. “_ _Our_ _home. And we can start there.”_

Kurt doesn’t have to say it twice.

He closes his eyes when he feels his naked body lifted into the air, the rush of the wind pushing against him, and that sensation of rising and falling that makes his stomach lurch and his heart stutter. True to Sebastian’s word, it takes only a second to get to Kurt’s penthouse in Manhattan. How a city full of people can miss a nearly seven foot winged demon flying through the air at break neck speed astounds Kurt, but then again, New York is a city full of people always staring straight ahead or at the ground. Even if a bystander saw Sebastian in his true form, he dives through the air for less than a split second and is as black as the night sky – a sky that is infinitely darker when Kurt considers the amount of people milling about who probably haven’t gotten color back yet. The ones who still only see in shades of black and white wouldn’t notice Sebastian at all.

Sebastian alights onto Kurt’s balcony without a sound. Sebastian pulls the glass doors open and carries Kurt inside. Kurt keeps his arms looped around Sebastian’s neck, holding him tight, not sure where he’s supposed to begin. Sebastian lays Kurt out on his sofa and takes a step away. Kurt looks at Sebastian as he straightens – an Old World demon in Kurt’s stylish and modern living room, gazing around uneasily, strangely less confident, and in many ways, adorably uncomfortable.

Kurt laughs. He can’t help it. Sebastian may be dangerous and ferocious - with hard, scaly skin and razor sharp teeth - but here on the Upper East Side he is completely out of his depth. Sebastian’s eyes snap down to look at Kurt’s face. They glow brighter but Sebastian doesn’t move, doesn’t say a word, and Kurt registers that he’s done the unthinkable.

He’s hurt Sebastian’s feelings.

“I’m just going to go take a quick shower,” Kurt says, struggling to stand up and balance on legs that are more than happy to remain limp and useless. “Why don’t you try to make yourself at home…unless you would like to shower, too?”

The fire in Sebastian’s eyes flickers and dies down as he ponders Kurt’s offer.

“I have no need for primitive things like showers,” he says, using his savage bravado to hide his bruised ego.

Kurt smiles and nods, seeing straight through his ruse.

“I’ll only be a minute,” Kurt promises.

Kurt heads to his bathroom, marveling at the wondrous colors all around. He is so happy that he has an eye for design that transcends color blindness. He remembers talking to his best friend Rachel when she found her soulmate and all of the color came back to her life. She returned home with her soulmate Finn to find that very little in her apartment matched color-wise. She said she thought she had chosen complimentary color schemes (as indicated by a program on her computer that she used to help her decorate instead of consulting Kurt – a point of contention in their relationship for many years after), but the overall effect was garish and vomit-worthy. She and Finn had to rent a room at a nearby hotel for the night and deal with the apartment the next day. He remembers hearing her tell the story through a veil of melancholy, at a time when he was longing for his own soulmate, but now that Kurt has him – now that Sebastian is there with him – he can better appreciate the humor of her tale.

Kurt keeps his shower remarkably short (12 minutes from start to finish - definitely a Kurt Hummel record) though he does take a little longer than necessary examining the pearlescent quality of his tile and the flecks of gold in his designer hand soaps.

He returns to the living room wrapped in only a towel – the less of his designer clothes that he has to sacrifice to the altar of his soulmate, the better – but Sebastian isn’t there. Kurt walks to the balcony and peeks up at the sky, wondering if Sebastian was so offended that he took off again. Kurt frowns. If Sebastian did leave, he wouldn’t just be circling the sky. He’d be long gone.

Kurt hears a clatter in his bedroom, followed by the sound of swearing and what Kurt can only imagine is the distress of oversized hands trying to manhandle tiny ceramic statues…and failing. Kurt crosses through the penthouse and up the stairs to his bedroom. He feels much stronger in his own home, with Sebastian there, and all the good things in his life coming together.

He walks through the open door and there Sebastian stands, hunched over at a bedside table that barely reaches his shins, trying to piece together a shattered statue, cursing in some lost Babylonian dialect every time it comes apart again.

“Don’t worry about it,” Kurt says. “It’s an imitation anyway.”

Sebastian’s back scales bristle knowing he’s been caught. Kurt smiles, watching Sebastian struggle with the delicate figurine.

Sebastian balances the fragment he’s holding, catching his breath as he slowly backs away.

Sebastian stands to his full height and sighs in relief.

The statue falls apart again, the splintered pieces raining down on the wood table top with a light tinkling sound.

Sebastian hides his face behind fists full of claws.

“Son of a motherless…”

“Okay,” Kurt says, grabbing hold of Sebastian’s elbow and turning the demon to face him, “why don’t we focus our attention to something else?”

Sebastian drops his hands and looks at Kurt, grinning from ear to ear.

“Eager, aren’t you?” He slips his arms around Kurt’s narrow body, sharpened scales leaving marks in their wake – the marks Kurt had been hoping for.

“Is that a bad thing?” Kurt asks, fighting the urge to look down and see how those scales were imprinting onto his flesh, giving his body a vague impression of Sebastian’s own skin – making the two soulmates look like a matched set.

“No,” Sebastian says, eying Kurt’s neck, his shoulders, his chest, all the places he wants to lick and bite, “not at all. I just wasn’t sure you would be.”

Kurt swallows as Sebastian silences himself by latching onto Kurt’s neck, right below Kurt’s pulse, and layering the spot with kisses – hot, stinging presses of his lips and swipes of his tongue in circles, lapping up the sweet taste of human flesh that belongs to him - flesh he can savor whenever he wants because it’s his and only his.

There are no foreign touches on Kurt’s skin. Being a human and possessing no magic, Sebastian would be able to tell if Kurt had ever been intimate with another man. Sebastian would be able to see the handprints on Kurt’s skin, like heinous scars marking up his pure white flesh. There’s only one – a barely-there mark on Kurt’s hand, left by a touch that Sebastian can tell was unwanted. Some night, when they are lying together in bed and Kurt is sated and asleep, Sebastian will examine the print, isolate its owner, and eliminate him.

Kurt might object, but as his soulmate he will understand that Sebastian can’t help it.

Vengeance is in Sebastian’s nature.

Kurt trembles when Sebastian’s wings wrap around him, the two he uses for flight dividing and revealing his truer seraph nature – six equally sized wings, thick and leathery, prehensile, holding Kurt’s body and freeing Sebastian’s hands. Sebastian continues to torture that spot on Kurt’s neck that has him reeling, his eyes rolling to the back of his head, while Sebastian’s hands work their way down Kurt’s body and undo the knot in his towel.

“You wanted me to mark you,” Sebastian hisses when Kurt moans. “I can’t wait to see the look on your face when you see what I’ve done.”

It sounds like a challenge, but it’s endearing, and the promise of it makes Kurt hard in an instant.

“D-do more,” Kurt whimpers. “Make another one.”

Sebastian finds another spot and attacks it, holding Kurt tighter, moving him slowly, laying him out on the bed behind them. Kurt relaxes beneath the devastating attentions of Sebastian’s tongue, but even as he concentrates on the circular mark being burned into his skin, anxiety kicks in. Kurt has thought of this moment so many times that he’s confident he knows all the ins and outs of Sebastian’s body – all the things he’ll need to do to make Sebastian come unraveled in his inexperienced hands – but beneath the powerful body of the seraph, Kurt feels like a foolish human, a foolish boy, his confidence fading.

How does a 25-year-old man compete with the experience of a demon who has walked the earth since its inception?

What can Kurt even do to make him happy?

A voice in his head tells him he has to do nothing. He just has to _be._

And as much as that makes sense, it’s hard for him to believe.

“What do you want me to do for you?” Sebastian whispers. It’s the first time Kurt has heard this sound – soft and silky, with the hiss of a snake but deliberately spoken, his tongue curling around the words, and with every flick tattooing them to Kurt’s skin.

“I…” Kurt’s eyes shift to the wings surrounding his body, and the scales flush against his skin, leaving their prints – their proof of possession, “I don’t actually know.”

Sebastian rolls his head on his neck, sighing exaggeratedly.

“Yes you do,” he says. “I know you do. I’ve seen your dreams.”

Kurt’s jaw drops. His dreams are his. They’re private. They are the only arsenal Kurt has to prove himself to his soulmate. Kurt is almost embarrassed that Sebastian has seen them.

“Then _you_ tell me what I want,” Kurt snaps.

“You want me to kiss you,” Sebastian says in the same seductive whisper, ignoring Kurt’s tantrum.

Kurt swallows hard.

“Yes,” he replies. “M-more than anything.”

Kurt’s voice fails as he watches Sebastian lick his lips, his long reptilian tongue sizzling across his skin.

“I’ll give you anything you want,” Sebastian says, his urge to have Kurt growing along with the hunger in Kurt’s eyes. “All you have to do is ask for it.”

Kurt can’t help but smirk at the thought.

“Anything I ask for, you’ll give me?”

“Of course. I serve you now, you must know that.” Sebastian raises a hand and presses it over Kurt’s heart. “You must feel it.”

“Maybe I’ll feel it more with you inside me,” Kurt says, trying for more daring.

Sebastian sucks in a breath through pointed teeth.

“We’ll get to that,” he says, his voice a breathy moan. “But how about we start with that kiss?”

Kurt nods.

“Sebastian,” he says, finding a voice inside him that sounds braver than he feels, “kiss me.”

“Whatever you want.” Sebastian’s eyes glow brighter when they flick down Kurt’s face and stop on his lips.

Sebastian doesn’t close his eyes when he kisses Kurt for the first time, and not because it isn’t an amazing kiss, but because he needs to see Kurt – he needs to know that Kurt wants him. Kurt is gorgeous by human standards. Demons don’t measure beauty the way humans do, and having never been human, he didn’t have that experience to tap into for a long time. Sebastian stalked Kurt extensively before he made his move to claim him, and during that time he inhabited many human bodies to see Kurt in that shallow way humans do.

He understands now how the lesser creatures perceive Kurt’s beauty, and that’s as far as his comprehension goes. He has felt their reactions – men and women alike – when the lay eyes on his soulmate. Reactions so strong it almost filled Sebastian with an incurable rage, but for the use of their bodies, Sebastian spared the lives of those who had thoughts of wanting his soulmate for their own.

By demon standards, Kurt is less vulgar to look upon than other humans.

But Sebastian doesn’t judge Kurt by demon standards, or by human standards. He sees Kurt through the eyes of love, as corny and repellant as that concept is for Sebastian, and in that way Kurt is glorious. He is the pure sunlight and the sacred darkness. He is the beginning and the end. He is food and air and water. Sebastian has waited every second of his dreary existence for Kurt to appear, and the day Kurt dies, Sebastian will follow him.

On the other end of the spectrum, Sebastian understands how humans perceive demons. He doesn’t reveal himself too often, but he’s watched human movies, read human literature. He knows why humans fear and revile his kind, and justifiably so.

So in the same way Kurt worries about Sebastian’s demon nature overpowering his newly developed and unprecedented love for him, Sebastian doesn’t see how Kurt can accept this soulmate bond without recoiling in horror every time Sebastian touches him.

It’s not in Sebastian’s nature to feel self-conscious or weak, but one single rejection from Kurt could bring Sebastian to his knees, which is why this reassurance is necessary.

But there Kurt is – blessed, amazing Kurt – melting inside the cocoon of Sebastian’s wings, chasing Sebastian’s lips with his own, moaning with every sweep of Sebastian’s tongue inside his mouth, chanting Sebastian’s name when the demon moves down his chin to plant kisses on the column of his neck.

“More,” Kurt begs, his voice blissfully broken, moving his head, straining to uncover more places he needs to be kissed, “please, Sebastian…I…I need you…”

“You need me,” Sebastian repeats, ending his kisses at Kurt’s collarbone and using his tongue to carve a special mark, one that will last, one that will visibly and inarguably stake his claim. Kurt cries out as the wound cuts deep, but Sebastian doesn’t stop. He feels Kurt’s body react. He feels him grow hard beneath him.

This is the way it’s supposed to be.

“Yes,” Kurt whines, raising a shaking hand to feel the mark on his skin – a half-moon slice with a six-pointed star dangling off the curved edge. “Yes, I need you. Can’t you feel it?” Kurt moves his hips up to meet Sebastian’s body. “Can’t you feel how much I need you?”

“Yes,” Sebastian admits, “but not so much here…” Sebastian reaches a hand between Kurt’s legs and touches Kurt’s cock, stroking him carefully, reveling in the trust this man has given him. Sebastian’s nails are long, and sharper than any dagger. They rest against Kurt’s leg, brushing the thin membrane of skin above his femoral artery. Kurt simply lets his eyes flutter shut as he gives his body over to Sebastian’s care. “I feel it here…” Sebastian continues, resting his free hand over Kurt’s heart.

“H-how do you feel it?” Kurt asks innocently, arching his body into Sebastian’s touch.

“Your heart speaks to me,” Sebastian says with a subtle hiss. “Your whole body speaks to me, and I listen to everything it says.”

Sebastian’s lips move down Kurt’s chest, and Kurt shivers.

“I-is it telling you to make love to me now?” Kurt whimpers desperately. “Because that’s what I hear…”

Sebastian chuckles darkly, letting his tongue wrap around Kurt’s hip, leaving a whip-like mark over the impression of scales there.

“Yes, I hear that, too.” Sebastian moves lower, eager to see every inch of his soul mate, all the places Kurt hides from the world that are open to him.

“So…” Kurt stutters, making an almost inhuman sound when Sebastian forces Kurt’s legs open wider and licks a long, teasing stripe up the inside of one leg that curls around his cock and travels down the other leg, “why are you…”

“Do you want it to be over so quickly?” Sebastian lets his tongue wander farther up between Kurt’s legs, circling the sensitive area behind his balls.

“I…”

“I could keep you here like this for decades,” Sebastian says between licks. “Eons…time has no meaning for me.”

“It might have some meaning for me,” Kurt argues, but Sebastian strokes faster and renders Kurt silent.

“Not as long as you stay with me.” Sebastian doesn’t elaborate, but Kurt doesn’t ask him to.

Sebastian feels Kurt’s body tighten below him and he knows Kurt is close. A few more strokes and Sebastian will watch his soul mate cum for him.

Kurt takes a deep breath in, teetering along the edge of needing to cum, and needing his soulmate.

“Sebastian,” Kurt moans, rolling his head from side to side, “you said you’d do whatever I asked…”

Sebastian stops the movement of his hand, feeling Kurt exhale with relief.

“I did,” Sebastian admits. He spreads his wings around him, moving up Kurt’s body with a single flap.

Kurt looks into the demons eyes as he waits for Kurt to ask.

Kurt reaches out a hand to find Sebastian’s. Kurt’s hand is soft and exceptionally fragile in comparison to Sebastian’s, but when Kurt laces their fingers together, they seem to fit in an abstract way.

Like they were meant to hold each other. Like the spaces between Sebastian’s fingers are only big enough for Kurt’s fingers to weave through.

“Make love to me, Sebastian,” Kurt asks sweetly, keeping his eyes locked on Sebastian’s glowing red stare. “Please.”

Kurt sees the cloud of some faraway indecision pass over Sebastian’s eyes, but it’s gone in an instant.

“As you wish, my love,” Sebastian says. Sebastian’s words are soothing and lyrical, even with the serpent’s tongue enunciating them.

“Have you…” Kurt almost doesn’t want to ask. It seems sacrilege to assume either way, but he has to know. Sebastian’s eyes search his, and they know what Kurt is asking.

“Not in the way that you think,” he explains, swallowing hard and looking ashamed. “I have entered people’s souls during the act, experienced it with their bodies, through their minds…”

Kurt nods in response. It’s not ideal, and on a level he doesn’t like it, but Sebastian is who he is – a demon. And in the spirit of pain and torment…well, Kurt imagines there is little that Sebastian hasn’t done. The concept comes with a torrent of blurred lines, and Kurt sighs deeply.

Sebastian isn’t blind to his soulmate’s pain.

“But I have never made love to anyone,” he clarifies. “I have never allowed myself to have that experience for my own…in this body…” Sebastian leans low over Kurt, pressing his body against his soulmate. “So you will be my first,” Sebastian whispers, “and you will be my only, until the end of time immortal.”

Sebastian’s lips on Kurt’s mouth are gentle, soft, moving with the echo of unspoken words that feel like ‘I love you’ against Kurt’s skin. Kurt feels the bed move as Sebastian’s wings curve over their bodies and plant themselves onto the mattress, keeping Sebastian’s body slightly elevated. Kurt can feel Sebastian’s body changing and he dares a look. He doesn’t want Sebastian to metamorphosize. He doesn’t want the frail, human façade that Sebastian uses. But not until he watches Sebastian’s body begin to transform does Kurt realize he had never really considered the mechanics of sex with a demon. Even in his dreams, it was simply a matter of him being there and Sebastian being there, and nature taking its course.

Except now, Kurt notices, there has been one thing missing.

Kurt has been watching Sebastian for days now. He knows every inch of his body, or so he thought. Kurt is not one to stare at another man’s anatomy. He doesn’t make it a habit of checking guys out on the street, and he doesn’t watch _those_ kinds of movies. But in this instance of having his soulmate at his disposal, to ogle over and examine to his heart’s content, Kurt has yet to see Sebastian’s cock. Sebastian, in his demon form, resembles a tall human covered in dark, sinister-looking, serpent scales. He is broad shouldered with a muscular chest, and his arms and legs are supernaturally huge. He is stark and intimidating, and, for all outward appearances, without genitalia. Being locked away for six days, desperate for the touch of his soulmate, the thought had never occurred to Kurt, but now Kurt can see why.

Sebastian can take many forms and he uses that skill to hide this part of his body – probably because it is a part that makes him vulnerable. Sebastian stops kissing Kurt for a moment to finish his transformation, and Kurt watches the process with awe.

When it is complete, Sebastian is the same except for one change – a rather long, unusually human-looking cock, already hard and leaking between his legs.

Kurt’s entire body goes cold.

“Uh…” he stammers, looking comically between Sebastian’s amused eyes and his impossible erection.

“What?” Sebastian says in a teasing tone. “Does my body not please you?”

“Um…” Kurt feels stuck in the land of the stupid for his inability to put together words and make them into a sentence. “No…I mean _yes_! I mean…uh…”

“Just relax…” Sebastian cups his hands behind Kurt’s head and kisses him once more, “and let me take care of everything.”

Kurt nods, agreeing quickly even though he’s not entirely certain what he’s agreeing to.

But he trusts Sebastian.

Kurt feels like his whole life has been building up to this point – not having sex, or losing his virginity, which is an outdated and barbaric concept that Kurt doesn’t subscribe to anyway. It’s the being a part of something greater than himself. It’s finding his missing piece and not simply because he needed someone else to complete him, but because there was a specific piece of his heart missing all along – and Sebastian had it.

So when Sebastian carefully turns Kurt over onto his hands and knees, Kurt knows he has nothing to fear. Kurt feels Sebastian’s hands manipulate his body - sharp nails sliding down the bruised skin of his back, pulling his cheeks apart with his palms, making sure not to accidentally injure him – and instead of going rigid, Kurt’s entire body becomes pliant, obedient. It bends to Sebastian, and Sebastian bends back.

A flash of panic races through Kurt’s mind at the thought that Sebastian isn’t preparing him in any way, but when Kurt feels Sebastian enter his body, he isn’t blunt or forceful. Sebastian is slow and smooth, his body secreting some sort of thick venom that acts like lubrication. Like the acid in his saliva, Kurt imagines this would be excruciating to someone who wasn’t Sebastian’s soulmate, but to Kurt, it sends tingles shooting up along his spine as it absorbs into his skin. Kurt’s body stretches to accommodate him, fitting him like an extension of his own body.

“Oh…” Kurt breathes as Sebastian moves deeper, his voice wavering, punctuated by whimpers that fade into mewls, “oh…my…”

“How does that feel?” Sebastian asks.

“Oh…” Kurt repeats again, leaning forward, hugging his pillow to his chest. He thought Sebastian’s cock would burn inside him, the way his tongue burns his skin when it touches him, but it’s cool – almost ice cold. It fills Kurt’s body to bursting and chills him in the most erotic way.

Sebastian continues to push into Kurt’s entrance, and Kurt takes him all – every last inch. When Sebastian’s body is flush against Kurt’s, Kurt pushes back against him, begging for more.

Sebastian laughs.

“Impatient, little one,” he mutters, leaning over to kiss Kurt’s skin. He licks the marks that run down Kurt’s back. Kurt’s hole squeezes around him, and Sebastian begins to move.

Kurt shudders with every slow drag of Sebastian’s cock inside him, tingling with venom and exquisitely cold. Every sense in his body is no longer his own. He can feel Sebastian inside him, but he can feel himself around Sebastian, as if they are the same being – as if they are becoming one.

Kurt is still trying to search for an answer to Sebastian’s question, but anything that comes from his lips is nonsense.

“How does it feel?” Sebastian repeats.

“I…I can’t…” Kurt says. “There are no words…”

“I need to hear your pretty voice,” the demon says, grunting as he begins to lose his self-control. Sebastian’s fingers curl around Kurt’s hips, but he keeps his nails in check. Kurt rises up on his knees to meet his demon, and Sebastian moans as the change in angle puts him deeper inside his soulmate’s body.

“I love you,” Kurt says, his voice a whisper inside Sebastian’s ear. Sebastian squeezes his eyes shut as those words weave their way around his heart. He wraps leathery wings around Kurt’s body, keeping them locked close to one another.

“I love you, too,” Sebastian replies, kissing Kurt’s neck, using the palms of his hands to massage up Kurt’s thighs and over his cock. Kurt gasps with each stroke, completely unafraid and unashamed of this need that Sebastian has planted inside him as – with every touch – Sebastian seals their bond.

Sebastian’s movements become long and rhythmic, and he mutters into Kurt’s ear in a language that Kurt shouldn’t understand…but he can. It’s a low chant of the same words over and over – _“Mine…you are mine…always and forever…mine…”_

Kurt mouths the words over soundlessly in Sebastian’s chosen dialect, wishing he could repeat it, and as soon as he can give voice to the words, he finds that he can.

 _“Mine…”_ he repeats in the harsh sounding, forgotten tongue, “ _you are mine…always mine…forever mine…”_

Sebastian smiles.

 _“That’s right, little one,”_ he replies in the same language. _“I’m yours…you are mine…we belong to each other…”_

Kurt lolls his head back against Sebastian’s shoulder, letting Sebastian support his weight. It’s the same magical feeling of floating he had when they were flying together, only now his body stays tethered to earth while only his soul flies free. His mind floods with thousands of images, like a slideshow of Sebastian’s life – every moment leading up till now; the long, lonely years of his life until they found one another.

By the end of it, when he sees Sebastian’s thoughts come to the same moment in his mind - of the two of them joined together, right here, right now - Kurt opens his eyes and feels the heat in them as they glow red.

Sealing this bond between them makes them a part of each other. Kurt gives a piece of himself to Sebastian, and Sebastian gives a part of himself to Kurt.

As Kurt cums, as he feels himself release that part to Sebastian, as it covers his hand and soaks into his skin, Kurt can feel Sebastian fill him up from the inside. In this way, Kurt gains a bit of Sebastian’s demon soul.

And Sebastian gains a portion of Kurt’s humanity.

Sebastian’s wings begin to unwind from Kurt’s body, expecting Kurt to fall forward onto the bed – sated, exhausted, in need of sleep – but instead his soulmate turns and launches forward with a brand new set of fangs, sinking them deep into Sebastian’s neck.

“Fuck!” Sebastian cries, throwing his head back at this sensation of teeth piercing the armor of his scales for the first time in his existence. It’s a pleasure too decadent to minimize with words. “You can’t do that, little one,” Sebastian groans, putting a hand to the back of Kurt’s head and pulling him in closer despite his own protests, “or we’ll be going at it again when you should be resting.”

Kurt releases Sebastian’s neck and rears up to face him, eyes glowing red and fangs dripping with the black poison that is Sebastian’s blood.

“Who says I need to rest?” Kurt hisses, each word revealing the tip of a slightly reptilian tongue. “By all accounts, my love, I think it’s _my_ turn.”

 

 


	172. Looking for Warmth in a Cold City

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here’s a short little one-shot for the Kurtbastian Hiatus project prompt ‘domesticity’. Newlyweds Kurt and Sebastian deal with keeping warm on a cold night in New York City.

“Mmmm,” Kurt murmurs sleepily at the sudden feeling of hands roaming over his skin – well, technically over his pajamas, but his mostly unconscious mind substitutes the thick layer between him and his lover’s hands with thin air. Of course, in his dream, he’s lying on a sandy beach with Sebastian, on an island somewhere in the vicinity of the Caribbean Sea, the central Pacific Ocean, or some other tropical clime, instead of underneath five comforters in their freezing cold loft in New York City.

Hands bunch into the flannel of his pants and tug them down his legs; then deft fingers work through the buttons of his shirt and slip that off as well. Kurt’s skin bristles with a touch of cool air, but he soon finds warmth again when the heavy blankets fall back around his skin.

The bed dips and a body cradles around his – ice-cold naked skin fitting against his heated flesh, molding to his form, arms locking around his waist like a vice made of frigid steel.

“What the---“ Kurt screeches, rudely awoken, leaping up and away just to be dragged back under the covers by those strong, unyielding, frost-bitten arms. “Fuck, Sebastian! What the hell are you doing?”

“Warming up,” Sebastian says through chattering teeth, his tone cut and dry like the successful lawyer he is, leaving no room for argument.

“When does you warming up require an already warm me to freeze his ass off?” Kurt slaps at Sebastian’s arms but Sebastian holds him tighter.

“I’ve been going over files for the last five hours and the radiator froze over three hours ago,” Sebastian explains, his voice trembling. “You’re 8000 degrees warmer than I am, and since what’s mine is yours and what’s yours is mine, I’m borrowing some of your body heat.”

“I don’t see how your reluctance to wear a sweater or socks in the middle of winter is _my_ problem,” Kurt wails, especially when those aforementioned sockless feet squeeze between Kurt’s legs, searching for a place to warm up.

“Whatever happened to _for better or for worse_?” Sebastian asks, the shivers in his body dying down as the ones in Kurt’s body begin anew.

“How does that apply when you’re maliciously acting like an asshole? Seb, don’t!” Kurt cries as Sebastian’s hands creep underneath his arms, icicles that were once fingers digging into the warmth of Kurt’s armpits.

“What?” Sebastian asks innocently, kissing down Kurt’s neck in an attempt to appease his irritated husband.

“You know what happens when I catch a chill,” Kurt says, making an effort to squirm away. “I’ll have to go to the bathroom.”

“Well, if that happens, let me know,” Sebastian sighs in exasperation, “and we’ll deal with it. I don’t want you to be uncomfortable on my account.”

“But I’m already uncomfortable on your account!” Kurt argues. “It took me half an hour to find the right combination of blankets and a position where my arm wouldn’t fall asleep with my thick flannel shirt on.”

“Look, I realize that having to sleep beside your cuddle-whore husband of three months must be a tremendous shock and all, but I’ll compromise…” Sebastian runs his hands lightly over Kurt’s skin, up and down his sides, sliding over his back, kneading at his shoulders. Kurt moans gently beneath his husband’s talented fingers. “See, you don’t have to do a single solitary thing other than lie here and let me touch you until you fall back asleep.”

Kurt sighs, relaxing into Sebastian’s chilled skin, the heat from his body immediately bleeding through to warm his thawing husband.

“Mmmm,” Sebastian hums, “isn’t that nice?”

“Mm-hmm,” Kurt agrees, his eyes fluttering shut. Kurt settles back into the cozy cocoon of his bed, the comfort of his husband’s embrace, capturing back the dream that still lingers in the forefront of his exhausted mind.

No sooner has he returned to that beach in his head with Sebastian’s naked body wound tightly around his then Kurt’s eyes pop open.

“Sebastian?”

“Hmm?”

“I…uh…I have to go to the bathroom.”

Sebastian takes a breath in and snuggles deeper under the blankets with Kurt, completely defrosted and finally at ease.

“Hold it.”

 


	173. Seeing Things My Way

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon prompted - Hey I really like your kurtbastian fics! I don’t know if you take prompts or anything, but could you maybe consider writing Spiderman!Kurt and have Sebastian worrying about him getting hurt? Thank you so much!
> 
> Warning for minor anxiety and vague mention of injuries.

Sebastian paces by the window, looking frantically out at the New York City skyline, up and down the grey buildings, sweeping his gaze over the lights of the street down below. He checks his cell phone every fifteen seconds, hoping for a text message, but he only sees the time, and it’s not passing to his liking. In fact, Sebastian is certain that each subsequent minute passes by slower just to piss him off.

It wouldn’t bother him so much if Kurt wasn’t already over an hour late.

Sebastian searches the sky for the telltale tagline of silvery webs crossing the sky, but he sees nothing but a cloudless stretch of inky blackness and the occasional news helicopter.

Sebastian pounds the window with his fist, growling in frustration.

“God _thunk_ fucking _thunk_ dammit _THUNK_!”

Sebastian’s head snaps up when that last impact shakes the whole window. He waits for another sound to follow that one - any other sound - but he’s met with only silence. His blood turns to ice.

“Kurt?” Sebastian calls, running toward the sliding balcony door. For a moment, Sebastian prays it wasn’t him that smashed into the window. _Please, please let it be some big stupid bird_. “Kurt? _KURT_!”

All Sebastian can see is a mangled lump of a human being wrapped in skin-tight blue and red Spandex.

It’s a uniform that Sebastian had found so extraordinarily hot when he first saw Kurt in it, but now Sebastian has begun to despise it with every breath in his body.

“Kurt!” Sebastian slides the balcony door open, kneeling down beside his boyfriend, his hands hovering in the air over him with no idea what he can possibly touch that isn’t bruised or possibly broken. Kurt doesn’t move and Sebastian stares with wide-eyes at his chest, praying to see him breathe.

There’s a stuttered fall to his chest, then seconds later a dedicated rise and Kurt begins to breathe. His eyes flutter open, only partially hidden by the nearly shredded mask. He sees Sebastian, mouth agape, face pale, and he has the audacity to smile.

“Hi, honey,” Kurt murmurs through cracked lips, blood staining his bottom row of teeth and gums, “I’m home.”

Unamused, Sebastian stands up straight and crosses his arms over his chest.

“Kurt!” Sebastian glares murderously at the man lying flat on his back on the floor. “Do you know how fucking late you are? We had reservations over an hour ago!”

Kurt’s smile fades and he shakes his head, wincing when some injury in the vicinity of his neck flares up.

“Really?” Kurt struggles against aching muscles to stand with no help from his furious boyfriend. “ _That’s_ what you’re mad about? That I’m late for dinner reservations?”

“Well, whether you like it or not, Mr. Defender-of-the-Innocent,” Sebastian complains, “we _did_ have a date tonight, which you missed _again_.”

“I’m sorry if the destruction of the Triborough Bridge put a kink in your Friday night plans,” Kurt spits out bitterly, pulling the remaining pieces of his mask off his face. He brushes past Sebastian into the penthouse, uninvited, and makes a beeline for the bathroom. “Next time, I’ll remember to let a couple of thousand people die because you have _reservations_.”

“Thank you!” Sebastian says, throwing his hands up in the air triumphantly. “You’re finally seeing things my way!”

Kurt simply scoffs, not even dignifying his unreasonable boyfriend’s sardonic remark with a comeback.

“Kurt…” Sebastian slides the balcony door shut and walks after a limping Kurt, “there’s always going to be a villain terrorizing the city, or a train threatening to crash, or cars dangling off a bridge with people inside, but you can’t save them all.”

“You don’t understand,” Kurt says over a dry laugh.

“People die every day,” Sebastian continues. “Don’t you ever think that maybe you’re not really saving anyone – that you’re just prolonging the inevitable?”

“Wow,” Kurt says with disgust, not breaking his stride to confront Sebastian, “just when I didn’t think Sebastian Smythe could be any more of a selfish asshole.”

“You’re damn right I’m selfish!” Sebastian chases after Kurt, trying to head him off before he can lock himself away behind the bathroom door. “I don’t care about the city! I don’t care about all those mindless morons who are too stupid to stay out of trouble and get to spend more time with my boyfriend than I do!”

Kurt stops at the threshold of the bathroom door. His shoulders slump and he exhales deeply.

“I’m sorry,” he says, turning to face Sebastian fully for the first time since his return. “I forget how much this effects you. And you’re right. I need to find some balance in…in all of this…” Kurt motions around him with the hand still holding his torn mask. “And…I don’t even know where to begin…”

“We can discuss this later.” Sebastian steps forward and takes the mask from Kurt’s hand. “Why don’t you forget about this for right now. Forget about _them_ …” Sebastian says with a disgusted curl at the mention of the faceless masses that constantly eat up his boyfriend’s time. “Take your shower, and then we can get back to our evening.”

“I thought we lost our reservation?” Kurt asks, stepping further into his boyfriend’s embrace.

“Fuck that restaurant,” Sebastian says, his mouth hovering close to Kurt’s lips as he speaks. “I’ll order take-out. We’ll watch _Moulin Rouge_ …just the two of us. What do you say, Spiderman?”

“I say it sounds like a date, Smythe,” Kurt whispers. Kurt leans in to kiss Sebastian, but Sebastian moves an inch away.

“ _Even_ if we hear gunshots? Even if another bridge blows up? Even if we see the skyline burst into flames?”

“Even if the commissioner himself tries to bust down our door,” Kurt promises. He moves in quickly to capture the kiss he was denied, not being at all gentle even though his lips are cracked and split, burning as they touch Sebastian’s skin.

Kurt understands Sebastian’s frustration. Kurt misses Sebastian. His responsibility to the city may seem like his number one priority, but it isn’t. It truly never was.

It’s Sebastian. It always has been. Even when they were in high school way back in the day, Kurt loved Sebastian…and he always would. He can walk away from being Spiderman, but Sebastian is something Kurt could never walk away from.

Kurt takes one last, longing look at his gorgeous boyfriend, then heads to the bathroom to clean up.

Sebastian’s smooth, seductive grin falls the moment Kurt shuts the bathroom door.

“Yeah, right,” Sebastian says, knowing Kurt can’t hear him.

Sebastian turns on his heel. He bunches the mask up in his fist and punches the air angrily.

Kurt doesn’t see things the way Sebastian does. He doesn’t see that these people that he saves aren’t the victims – _they’re_ the enemy. Their petty problems, their constant need to be rescued, their inability to do anything for themselves is destroying Kurt, but worst of all, it’s destroying what Kurt and Sebastian have.

Sebastian can plan vacations, dinner reservations, all night movie-marathons, but it doesn’t matter. Those peasants scream and cry, and Kurt comes running. Meanwhile, Sebastian is waiting home all night to go on a date that is doomed before it even begins.

Well, not anymore.

Sebastian and Kurt don’t need to discuss this problem, because there won’t be a problem anymore.

Sebastian has spent many long and lonely nights coming up with the perfect solution – a way to get the lion’s share of Kurt’s attention.

Sebastian opens up Kurt’s mask in his hands, smoothing out the wrinkles. He runs his fingers over the material, poking through the holes that seem to have grazed Kurt’s face, barely missing his eye. This is the final straw. It’s time to take Kurt’s attention away from all of the dangerous, unnecessary imbeciles of the world and put it back where it belongs – on the man who would soon become Kurt’s fiancé.

Maybe Sebastian hasn’t had the benefit of being bitten by a radioactive spider, but he has one thing that most normal men looking to enter his new profession have.

He’s richer than Midas.

If donning his own Spandex body suit and endangering a few civilian lives as Manhattan’s newest super villain is the only way he’s going to get his boyfriend’s attention, then so be it.


	174. The Darndest Thing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a one-shot loosely based on the new Glee season six spoilers regarding Kurt’s interaction with Blaine and Dave at a shop and new information about their relationship that Kurt finds out. (I don’t want to spill here if you don’t want to know.) Warning for spoilers, mention of Klaine/Blaine/Blainofsky, angst.
> 
> ***NOTE: THIS IS THE LAST ONE-SHOT THAT i WILL BE POSTING TO THIS COLLECTION AS IT HAS BEEN REQUESTED THAT I BEGIN POSTING THEM INDIVIDUAL. SO ALL OF MY NEW WORK WILL BE POSTED AS IT'S OWN SEPARATE ENTITY NOW :) ***

Kurt whistled as he walked into Rockhouse Records for his Thursday afternoon vinyl fix. Vintage albums were a new obsession he’d been turned on to recently. He was on the hunt to find a copy of Patti LuPone singing _Evita_ on the original soundtrack since his copy had mysteriously vanished in the move between Lima and New York. He had his suspicions as to where it might have ended up, but it wasn’t worth tearing open old wounds just to reclaim an old soundtrack – especially considering new developments. He would normally opt for a copy on CD (which he did go ahead and order off of Amazon), but vinyl offered so many things that remastered HD quality sound lacked. All the little nuances that were erased – the sound of someone in the audience coughing, the breaths between the words, the clicking of character shoes on a wooden stage – were the very things that made the listener feel like they were sitting in the theater, watching that first performance so many years ago.

Kurt needed to get lost in a good musical score today.

He might be in Lima for a week to visit with his dad, but that didn’t mean he was about to give up his rituals, and this one was sacred. It had been instrumental in helping him get through a huge emotional hurdle – the dissolution of his engagement with Blaine.

Kurt had to face facts – they were just too young, too immature, too inexperienced at this point in their lives to make that kind of a commitment. They couldn’t even master living together, for heaven’s sake. They both needed to know themselves better as individuals before they could hook their wagons to each other, so to speak.

A break, Kurt had decided, a la Rachel Green style, might be the thing they needed to strengthen their relationship. Then, after time had passed and they had grown more into their own skins, they could come back together as the tour de force couple they were. The one thing he hadn’t anticipated was the effect this break would have on Blaine – the devastating effect, as it turned out. Blaine had always considered Kurt his anchor, and without him to hold on to, he flailed. He flunked out of NYADA, and in a completely unexpected move, went back to Westerville to live with his parents.

Kurt was flummoxed.

And as if things couldn’t get more bizarre, Blaine had already moved on…with Dave Karofsky.

Karofsky.

Blaine and Karofsky.

Kurt didn’t hold anything against Karofsky – not any more. Kurt had made peace with David a long time ago, and had always hoped for the best for him.

But Blaine?

The whole situation boggled the mind.

Didn’t Dave have dreams of becoming a big sports agent? Whatever happened to that? Why didn’t he leave Lima, this place that he hated, and never look back, the way he had planned?

Kurt didn’t understand it, so he had to therefore conclude that Joss Whedon got it wrong. Sunnydale, California was not the Hellmouth. Lima, Ohio was, and it seemed to suck unsuspecting victims back to its fold the way a Corpse Flower attracted flies.

Well, not Kurt. Kurt was no fly.

Kurt did his best to avoid the happy couple, which became freakishly difficult because even though Blaine lived in Westerville and worked at Dalton, he seemed to spend a suspicious amount of time in Lima. Kurt didn’t want to entrench himself in ex-fiancé-new-boyfriend drama, so he pretty much avoided all their old haunts and walked the other way when he could feel his Blaine-senses tingling.

But he couldn’t avoid them forever, which he realized when the bell above the door to the record shop jingled and in walked Blaine and Dave.

Rachel had warned Kurt what to expect when he told her about his plans to visit, but it was oddly surreal to witness it for himself – to see them walk in together, out of the blue, arm-in-arm. His ex-bully and his ex-fiancé together as a couple. Even as he said it in his head, it sounded like the opening to a bad joke.

Did that make him the punchline?

He didn’t want it to bother him, but there was a small degree to which it did.

Kurt would admit he had a moment of weakness after the split and Blaine moved back to Ohio. Kurt had considered chasing him, to confess his undying love to him and get back together, but after a dozen or so tequila shots with an unexpected friend, Kurt had decided to stay put. He was a New Yorker now. It was in his blood. He could no more leave the city and his dreams of Broadway than he could tear out his own heart, and that’s exactly what he’d be doing by leaving everything he had worked so hard for behind to follow Blaine or anyone.

No, he didn’t begrudge Dave and Blaine a single moment of their apparent happiness, but that didn’t mean that he wanted to get stuck in the position where he would have to talk to them. He wanted none of the awkward conversation, hearing about how wonderful their life was together, pretending they were all still friends, and that there was nothing about this situation that wasn’t just plain weird.

Kurt resolved to buy his record and leave, but in his attempt to play the role of nonchalant customer, he was apparently ignoring the happy couple too loudly, and found himself sucked into their tractor beam.

“Hey, Kurt!” Blaine said, rushing toward him, pulling Dave along. “I heard that you were back in town. How are you?”

“I’m good,” Kurt said, taking a step back so as not to be wrangled into an unwanted hug. “Hey, Dave. It’s nice to see you again.”

“Likewise,” Dave said with a terse wave.

“I was hoping we would run into you,” Blaine continued as if a veil of uncomfortable hadn’t just settled over the trio.

“Really?” Kurt asked. “Why?”

“Well, maybe you haven’t heard, but Dave and I have decided to move in together!” Blaine made the statement with that nervous chuckle Kurt had once found so adorable, but now was simply vomit-inducing.

“No,” Kurt said, fixing his smile firmly in place and fighting to keep his eyes from rolling, mostly for Dave’s sake, since the poor man didn’t seem at all as excited about this plan as Blaine did. “I hadn’t heard.”

“Yeah, well, it’s nothing much. Just a two bedroom in Westerville, but we’re excited about it.”

“Yeah,” Dave agreed half-heartedly. “Totally excited.”

Kurt nodded, wondering what the social etiquette behind running away from a wholly unpleasant situation was. Was he required to give them three minutes of his time? Five minutes? Did it involve chewing off a limb?

“Anyway,” Blaine carried on, “Brittany promised to help us decorate, but she won’t be in town for a few days, and I was hoping I could pick your brain for a few pointers.”

“Oh,” Kurt said, his mouth dropping open a bit in surprise, “that sounds…actually, I can’t right now. I’m kind of meeting someone for lunch.”

“I completely understand,” Blaine said with a dismissive wave. “I know you came out here to see your dad, but if you can find time in your schedule, could you give me a call?”

Kurt looked back and forth between Blaine’s face, then Dave’s, and then back to Blaine.

“Uh, sure,” Kurt said, backing slowly away. “If I find the time. It was nice seeing you…both…again…”

Kurt made his way to the register without looking back, but he felt like he was being watched. He purchased his vinyl record and walked out the door, turning once to do the polite thing and give a last wave good-bye.

Kurt took a deep breath of the cold air and sighed, wondering how much more unreal this day could get, when a pair of strong arms wrapped around his waist and lifted him up from behind.

“Ugh!” Kurt groaned as he was swung back and forth like a rag doll. “Get off of me!”

“I can’t,” Sebastian teased. “I think my arms are stuck.” But he obediently dropped his boyfriend back to the sidewalk, even if he wasn’t gentle about it. Sebastian spun Kurt around in his arms. “Hey, babe. Why the long face?”

“I…it’s the darndest thing,” Kurt started out, tugging on the hem of his jacket to straighten it back onto his frame. “Guess who I just ran into at the record store?”

“Tell me,” Sebastian said, only half-listening as he bit along the skin of Kurt’s jawline.

“Blaine.”

“How is that weird?” Sebastian muttered, moving on to Kurt’s neck. “You knew he moved back here after he flunked out of NYADA.”

“I know,” Kurt said, giggling when Sebastian bit down on a sensitive patch of skin, and pushed his boyfriend away. “That’s not the weird part.”

“Okay…” Sebastian grabbed Kurt by the hips, unwilling to be shunned. “What’s the weird part?”

“He’s moving into a new apartment…with Dave Karofsky.”

“Wow,” Sebastian said, stopping his assault on Kurt and looking genuinely shocked. “That is something. The Hobbit and Liberace. Are you okay?” Sebastian asked, and then covered his concern by saying, “I don’t want you being weepy during sex later on. It kind of kills the mood.”

Kurt nodded slowly, a smile spreading across his lips.

“Actually, it’s a relief,” Kurt admitted. “I mean, I felt a little guilty when Blaine spiraled out of control and flunked out of school, but they look so happy.” Kurt glanced over his shoulder at the record shop, but the two men were nowhere to be seen. “It’s nice to know alls well that ends well.”

Kurt sighed, ducking his head, and Sebastian bent over to catch his eyes.

“Any regrets?” Sebastian asked, sounding a little vulnerable even though he was fairly sure of the answer.

“No,” Kurt said, looping his arms around Sebastian’s neck and pulling him close. “Not about us.”

“Great,” Sebastian said, kissing Kurt chastely on the lips, knowing the boundaries of Kurt’s PDA and realizing he’d already crossed a dozen of them during this exchange. “Let’s go back to your dad’s house and bone. I can think of a few surfaces we haven’t christened yet.”

“You are so vulgar,” Kurt groaned, pushing away from Sebastian who slipped his hand into Kurt’s back pocket and pulled him back.

“I know,” Sebastian said, entirely unrepentant, “but that’s why you love me.”

“Well, that’s not the reason,” Kurt chuckled, giving up on his escape and resting his head on Sebastian’s shoulder, “but yes, I do love you.”

Sebastian dropped a kiss onto the crown of Kurt’s head as they hurried away through the frigid afternoon air to Sebastian’s waiting car.

Inside the record shop, a disgruntled Blaine peeked out the window from behind a display of clearance CDs, watching his ex-fiancé and his old nemesis walk away wrapped in each other’s arms.

“I don’t think that worked the way you hoped it would,” Dave said, shaking his head and clapping Blaine on the shoulder.


End file.
